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Comment by mhandley | Hacker News Reader

The strike price for nuclear power from Hinkley Point C when it becomes operational will be £92.50/MWh. This has received a lot of criticism for being too high. With current wholesale rates at £385/MWh, suddenly Hinkley Point C doesn't look so expensive any more.

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Except Hinkley Point C would require those high prices persist for a decade in order to pay off. That's unlikely to happen.

Well, I don’t see why it shouldn’t happen. It’s not like the UK is currently building nuclear power plants like China or Russia do.

High prices like that will bring in a flood of new renewable capacity. It cannot last.

For 3 and a half decades.

Well, the price for HPC is very expensive. The stupid thing is that by structuring the subsidy in a smarter way the UK could have gotten it at half the price. I've seen no reason why they did it how they did except adherence to some ideological dogma. Or putting my conspiracy glasses on, maybe some politically well-connected bankers in London made off like robbers at the expense of the public at large.

TVO in Finland managed to get similar plant for final price of 5,7 milliard euros. Though it is not yet producing energy. So, UK did somewhat worse in the process.

Yep, by forcing Areva, the supplier of it, into bankruptcy by having the foresight of signing a fixed price deal.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Areva#Restructuring

Grid scale battery banks also make sense at that price.

Cost of capital is a thing though. Much easier to raise money for a wind turbine or solar panel than a nuclear reactor. They're very efficient once running, but at that point they have investors and insurers to pay back.

> £92.50/MWh

Index linked.

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