New scientific adviser urged to prioritise energy plan

The next government chief scientific adviser’s first priority should be drawing up a “fact-based” plan for the UK’s energy needs, the chair of the Nuclear Industries Association has urged.

Giving evidence on Wednesday (9 November) to the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee, Dr Tim Stone also said smaller nuclear power stations should be located on the sites of redundant coal plants to reduce the need for costly grid upgrades.

He told the MPs that the UK needs a “proper system plan” for energy, which should be carried out by the successor to Sir Patrick Vallance, who is due to step down from the role of chief government scientific advisor next April.

Stone said: “The first thing they should do is commission a proper independent, fact-based system plan for energy in the UK because we have to replace all of it.”

He was also quizzed by the committee on how the cost of connecting new nuclear plants to the grid can be minimised.

Stone said locating multi-GW plants on or near the sites of existing or former nuclear power station sites, like EDF is doing at Hinkley Point C, could maximise existing grid infrastructure.

However, he suggested that sub-GW scale small modular reactor plants could be located on repowered coal sites, like a project backed by Microsoft founder Bill Gates in the US state of Wyoming.

Using these former power station sites with already sizeable grid connections would mean a “relatively small amount of reinforcement” for the network, Stone said: “The facilities are already there rather than adding yet more challenges to National Grid’s already huge battle to connect the rest of the system.”

He also rejected evidence presented by James Richardson, chief economist of the National Infrastructure Commission, that using the Regulated Asset Base infrastructure financing model will not cut the costs of nuclear projects.

The use of the RAB model, which the government has recently legislated to allow in nuclear projects, will not make such developments “inherently cheaper”, said Richardson: “It doesn’t mean customers and taxpayers are getting a better deal. They only get a better deal if the project is delivered more efficiently and nothing in the RAB model inherently improves the project management of these large, complex projects.”

Stone countered that the RAB model would dramatically cut the substantial financing costs of nuclear.

Richardson also told the committee it would be a “huge gamble” for the UK to commit to further large-scale power stations on top of Sizewell C because of the potential cost reductions other renewable technologies may have delivered by then.

Arguing that commissioning a fleet of multi-GW plants is a “huge bet”, he said: “It makes sense to do Sizewell C but not to accelerate the programme. We may want a third one when we know more.”

Richardson also said that the excess heat from nuclear generation, which EDF has touted as a major side benefit of its Sizewell C project, is not sufficiently high quality to be a “game changer” for the economics of the technology.