AT A GLANCE:

 

• New nuclear power projects will not begin to produce electricity for decades, even if started now.

 

• Renewable energy sources are quick and cheap to build and are already making a massive contribution to the uk's electricity production.

 

• At the moment, even on sunny, windy days, we are still relying on fossil fuels and imported electricity

 

• Offshore wind turbines are expected to produce 20 gw of energy by the end of 2025, 50GW within 5 years.

 

• The uk government has committed to doubling onshore wind energy capacity by 2030

 

• The uk's solar sector is experiencing significant growth, with plans to increase solar capacity threefold and potentially reach 70 gw by 2035

 

• The amount of energy generated by the tides around our coast is almost limitless. It would be criminal not to harvest it.

 

• Electricity storage solutions are increasing at a tremendous rate and will help ensure we can always "keep the lights on".

 

 

Looking at this real time data can be very instructive. For example at 11:15 am on the 13th of May 2025 it was sunny and bright all over the UK with plenty of wind in all areas. Yet 15% of our electricity consumption was being purchased from France and Norway and 15% of our home production was from fossil fuels! All this when it's windy and bright all over the country. How much cheaper could our electricity be if we have enough renewables?

 

IN DETAIL:

 

FACT:

Hinkley C Nuclear Power plant in Somerset, being constructed by the French state owned company EDF Energy and China General Nuclear (CGN) applied for land use permission in 2008, was granted a licence in 2012. EDF promised it would be delivering electricity by 2025 but the expected date for completion now is June 2031 at the earliest and more likely to be 2035 according to many in the nuclear industry. It's original cost was to be £18 billion and is now estimated to be £46 billion. As of May 2025, EDF had not found investors to replace additional investment from CGN.

 

The Hinkley Point C construction site with plants A and B visible in the background. Image courtesy of EDF Energy.

 

EDF originally said that Hinkley C would not experience any cost overruns or delays as they would learn lessons from the plant that they were building at Flamanville in Normandy, France.

 

FACT:

Flamanville was started in 2007 and scheduled to begin producing Electricity in 2012. InDecember 2024, after 12 years of delays, one reactor was started up but suffered two automatic shutdowns in quick succession, then restarted. In April 2025 it was shut down again due to design problems. It has now restarted again but the core of the Flamanville EPR reactor will now need to be shut down and completely rebuilt to prevent potential fuel rod leakage problems, sometime in the next year or so. This decision is based on feedback from the Taishan reactor in China, which experienced similar problems during the second production cycle. “This is a precautionary measure,” EDF emphasizes. ” To date, there have been no leak-tightness issues. We are simply taking into account international feedback.”

 

FACT:

Sizewell C, the new nuclear power station that cash-strapped EDF want to build on the Suffolk coast, has already soaked up £2.44 billion of UK government investment (ie money from the UK tax and bill payer) before construction has even started. EDF say this Nuclear power station will not incur cost overruns or delays as they have learnt their lessons from Hinkley C! Forgive us if here at STAND we view that optimism with a jaundiced eye.

 

Marc Jacobson, Stanford University's Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Director, Atmosphere/Energy Program says “ the average time to build a nuclear power station is around 14.5 years, from the planning phase all the way to operation. Utility-scale wind and solar farms, on the other hand, take on average only 2 to 5 years, from the planning phase to operation. Rooftop solar PV projects are down to only a 6-month timeline.

 

NUCLEAR POWER IS CLEARLY NOT THE ANSWER TO THE UK's ENERGY NEEDS, SO WHAT IS THE CURRENT STATUS OF RENEWABLE ENERGY GENERATION IN THE UK AT THE MOMENT?

 

OFFSHORE WIND POWER

In April 2025, the UK's operational offshore wind capacity was approximately 16 GW, with a further 8 GW under construction and 4.2 GW in pre-construction. By the end of 2025, the UK is expected to reach around 19 GW of offshore wind capacity. This includes 2.5 GW of projects expected to be fully commissioned during the year. The UK government aims to have 50 GW of offshore wind capacity by 2030, including 5 GW from floating wind.

 

 

ONSHORE WIND POWER

The UK has a significant number of onshore wind turbines, withover 8,800 turbines on over 2,600 farms. These turbines contribute significantly to the UK's renewable energy generation, with a total installed capacity of around 15.4 GW. A large portion of this capacity is located in Scotland, followed by England and Wales. Key Points about Onshore Wind Turbines in the UK: Onshore wind farms generated 32.4 TWh of electricity in 2023, representing 24% of all renewable electricity generation in the UK and 11% of total electricity generation. Future Growth: The UK government has committed to doubling onshore wind energy capacity by 2030, aiming to lift the "de facto ban" on onshore wind in England.

 

 

SOLAR POWER

In 2025, the UK achieved a new solar generation record of 12.2 GW on April 1st. This was driven by a combination of increased installed capacity (18 GW by late March) and a sunnier March than normal, according to the Solar Power Portal and the Met Office. The UK's solar sector is experiencing significant growth, with plans to increase solar capacity threefold and potentially reach 70 GW by 2035. Long-Term Growth: The UK has seen dramatic growth in solar capacity, with a 700-fold increase in installed capacity over 15 years. Future Plans: The government plans to increase solar capacity threefold and potentially reach 70 GW by 2035.

 

 

Even in not-always-sunny UK, solar pv could provide up to 40 per-cent of annual electricity production, writes David Toke, Reader at the University of Aberdeen, in a May 2025 post on his SubStack blog. That is without a significant amount of curtailment of production or even the need to convert the electricity into stored energy such as hydrogen. Of course this is dependent on there being enough provision of batteries. Solar plus batteries will be the dominant energy system in the world in future decades, but they will also be centrally important in UK.

the Fraunhofer Research Institute have produced a report which says that solar-plus-batteries is cheaper than conventional power plant including gas and coal and roughly on a par with offshore wind.

 

TIDAL POWER

We are uniquely placed here in the UK, possibly more than any other country in the world, to make use of the phenomenal power of the tides, billions of tons of water being pulled irresistibly around our coastline by the passage of the moon. The Severn Estuary has the second highest tidal range in the world.

 

The Severn Estuary Commission, established in March 2024 by the Western Gateway Partnership to assess the feasibility of tidal range energy generation in the Severn Estuary, after a year’s engagement with more than 500 experts and stakeholders with the support of specialist consultancies, concluded in April 2025 that the development of tidal range energy in the Severn Estuary is feasible. An interesting commentary on the report by Jonathon Porritt was subsequently published in the Ecologist.

 

There are many exciting tidal developments in the pipeline around the Welsh coast: The Morlais tidal project in Anglesey is well under way and will be producing electricity by 2026. Plans have been tabled for a £590M tidal lagoon from Mostyn to Point of Ayr in Flintshire, North Wales. In May 2021, the Welsh government said it had received “strong” engagement on potential plans to build a tidal lagoon somewhere along the coast. Denbighshire County Council supported plans for a £7bn, 30km tidal lagoon on the Denbighshire coast in North Wales. And it now seems that a £1.7bn renewable energy project on Swansea’s waterfront will be going ahead with the team of engineering consultancy HDR and infrastructure project solutions firm Enable and technology giant Siemens. This will initially feature a hub for electric vehicle charging, but the larger scheme is set to include a raft of facilities including a tidal lagoon, a mega data centre, a high-tech battery manufacturing plant, green hydrogen production, floating solar panels and a battery storage facility. STAND has estimated that 30 small tidal lagoons dotted around the UK coastline would provide constant electricity greater than that produced by Hinkley C or the proposed Sizewell C put together, for less than a tenth of the cost.

 

 

STORAGE

Sensible investment in tidal power, whether from seafloor turbines or from lagoons, and a good spread of wind turbines and solar panels over the whole of the UK will ensure good continuity of electricity production. However, there may be occasions when other backup would be advisable. Research and development work into providing long-term electricity storage Is attracting huge financial investment from around the world, whether in hydraulic storage (such as the Snowdonia project which has been operating successfully for many years), battery backup technology and other schemes.

 

Harmony Energy Income Trust, for example, announced in May 2025 that it has brought Europe’s largest battery energy storage system (by MWh) online in the UK. Installed near Hull, in the United Kingdom, it has the capacity to store up to 196 MWh of electricity in a single cycle. Harmony says that this is enough electricity.to power around 300,000 UK homes for two hours. The project will provide critical balancing services to the GB electricity grid network whilst also enabling the replacement of fossil fuels with renewable energy.

 

 

It is legitimate to ask "Can we ensure we can keep the lights on?", but when the Nuclear industry tell you that this can only be achieved by nuclear power, they are, quite simply, lying.