This is the final issue of volume 176 of Energy, marking the end of 2023, a year that has seen numerous reports of escalating costs in energy projects: Hinkley Point C nuclear power station in the UK is now expected to exceed $40 billion; international offshore wind developers in Europe and the USA have threatened to walk away from contracts due to rising costs and diminishing returns unless they are given opportunities to renegotiate the terms. Three out of four of this issue's papers concern overviews and economics of major energy projects. These projects run into the billions of pounds and the management of their costs is of utmost importance. Without accurate means of estimating and controlling costs and returns, the future of some renewables projects is in the balance.
Offshore wind is an area where, to date, the UK and Europe have led. The USA finds itself a decade or two behind in development. Jost and Xydis (2023) summarise the progress in offshore wind on the U.S. eastern seaboard. The U.S. has a similar goal to the UK of installing 30 GW of offshore wind capacity by 2030. The significance of the eastern seaboard is the proximity to large centres of population and the relatively shallow waters (<50 m) of the continental shelf. These extend some 60 miles from the mainland allowing these developments to be constructed beyond the horizon when viewed from shore. With a regulatory process that is administered at state level, cultural and historic politics play a major part in approvals. Technical aspects, like the presence of tropical storms in southern states, present huge challenges, thus the focus is on the north-east. Given that there is limited expertise in the design and construction of offshore wind farms in the U.S., and a fixed number of maritime crane vessels for installation globally, the U.S. will find itself competing with Europe and further afield for those limited skills and resources.
Skills and resources shortages are some of the many challenges of energy transition. This journal plans an upcoming themed issue entitled ‘Skills for energy transitions’. If you have professional or academic interest in this area and would like to contribute, succinct briefing articles are welcomed as an alternative to full academic papers. If this is something that would be of interest to you, please contact the journal office for information on briefing article submissions.
Many decades ago, when the notion of recovering energy from the sea was discussed, it generally focused not on wind but on tidal power barrages. Few would have predicted that, as we approach the end of the first quarter of the twenty-first century, the UK would have no operational tidal power schemes. Perhaps a lack of economic viability was a contributor to those tidal schemes being overtaken. Vandercruyssen et al. (2023) in the second paper suggest a fair means of modelling costs as a basis for a national strategy to kick-start delivery of tidal into the energy make-up. The methodology presented brings a transparency to the process and a simple means to modify estimates based on the nature of the scheme and the attributes of the turbines, powerhouse, sluice-gates, cofferdam and bund. Environmental costing of the protection of inter-tidal regions is not covered here but is proposed in a future paper.
The term first-of-a-kind (FOAK) is one that we encounter often in reference to new and sustainable means of generating power. Many of the proposals – floating wind turbines, carbon dioxide capture and storage (CCS) and tidal barrages – have never been built in large scale. There are unknown margins in the engineering, construction and commissioning costs in bringing a scientific trial to fruition as a full-size construction scheme that should not be downplayed.
FOAK is particularly appropriate for nuclear fusion power. Fusion for generation is so much in its infancy that the first net energy gain was made only in 2022 after 80 plus years of research. In order for it to be included as a viable option in a calculation of the energy mix for future generations, Webbe-Wood and Nuttall (2023) have proposed a simple net present worth calculation baselined on a year of first power of 2040. Even if this date is optimistic – and it probably is – whether it is three or four decades before a working power station is constructed, the calculation can be used to illustrate how much increasing capital costs could jeopardise the feasibility of the scheme. What should also be considered are potential outages and disposal costs. Whilst not producing spent fuels, these reactors will have decommissioned containment components and radioactive activation products to deal with.
In the meantime, before these new and effective means of generating power come on-stream, consumers need to become more efficient in the use of the energy that we do produce. Hajiyev et al. (2023) in the last paper note that energy consumption has been growing steadily during human history, generally linked to urbanisation, and is likely to continue growing to 2050. So, undoubtedly, there will be continuous demand for the sustainable power produced by all the schemes noted in the first three papers.
The editorial panel of Energy is currently seeking new members. The panel is drawn from a mix of academic and industry backgrounds. Whatever the professional background, the panel strives to balance gender, race, age and international composition with the range of expertise. We would invite interested readers or associates to submit their CV to the journal office.
On the topic of construction costs, it should be noted that the Institution of Civil Engineers’ (ICE) comprehensive Virtual Library has extensive information on historic costs and benchmarking for many projects. These date back to 1836, when the learned society's publishing programme first began; these archives contain some of the most important nineteenth, twentieth and twenty-first century research published in the fields of civil engineering and construction. The back-catalogue is fully searchable and also contains all Proceedings published by ICE in more specialist areas.
