Cheap wind and solar will make tidal and nuclear power irrelevant if costs don't decrease

Punchline reports on the announcement from Tidal Lagoon Power than their proposed Swansea bay development has secured a connection to the grid, an essential precursor to any energy plant being successfully built.

The company boasts. "Today we have secured the grid connection for a tidal power station equal in installed capacity to Hinkley Point C. Looking at the pounds per megawatt hour unit cost of new build power stations, nuclear is currently priced in the nineties, the latest offshore wind projects are expected to drop into the seventies and our models show Cardiff Tidal Lagoon beating them all in the sixties.”

The timing is particularly unfortunate in that it comes on the same day that Dong Energy has won the latest round of offshore wind projects with a bid of only £57.50/MWh which is half the price of installed wind only two years ago. With the costs of wind and solar falling rapidly, tidal electricity generation risks becoming as irrelevant as nuclear unless the costs come down sharpish.

You can read the upbeat report on Punchline here.