Renewable chief claims UK offshore energy is becoming cheaper than nuclear power

Offshore windfarms look set to provide significantly better value for money than the extravagant cost of nuclear power agreed with EDF for Hinkley Point C – according to leading expert Hugh McNeal, chief executive of RenewablesUK.
 
While the price of offshore wind continues to drop the more that is invested in the technology – falling by a third over the last four years – the 35-year deal with EDF sets the price of nuclear power at more than twice the current retail price of electricity and will balloon further with inflation and soaring Brexit-related costs.
 
McNeal, a former civil servant at the Department for Energy (DECC), criticised Tory rhetoric that fails to spell out the impact of billions of pounds of subsidies for coal and nuclear power on energy bills in order to justify their outdated energy policy.
 
SNP MSP Gillian Martin, who sits on Holyrood’s Economy Committee, said: “It is becoming ever more apparent that the Tory government’s energy policy is dangerously out-dated and completely missing the point.

“With the revelation that offshore windfarms are expected to produce electricity at a lower cost per hour than the expensive white elephant Hinkley Point project  – it’s clear the Tories are going to live to regret putting all their eggs in the nuclear basket.
 
“The cost of Hinkley Point is already an unjustifiable extravagance and the Tories need to drop the rhetoric about renewable energy subsidies and face the reality that it is nuclear power, not renewables, that will load billions onto household and business energy bills in the future.

“Offshore and onshore wind brought £11 billion investment to the UK last year and yet the Tories took away all investment in onshore wind as soon as they came to power. The cost of offshore wind energy has fallen by a third over the last four years and as the technology develops, who knows where we could be in another four years? “