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<p>DECC’s most recently published figures for the levelised costs of electricity generation
for different technologies are available in the DECC Electricity Generation Costs
(December 2013) report:</p><p><a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/269888/131217_Electricity_Generation_costs_report_December_2013_Final.pdf"
target="_blank">https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/269888/131217_Electricity_Generation_costs_report_December_2013_Final.pdf</a></p><p>Table
1 below is taken from this report, and shows a range of levelised cost estimates for
nuclear offshore wind, solar photovoltaic, and gas projects commissioning in 2014
and 2020 at technology specific hurdle rates (pre-tax real). Estimates are not published
for nuclear projects commissioning in 2014, or coal projects without carbon capture
and storage commissioning in 2014 or 2020 given there will be no new projects commissioned
in this timeframe. DECC does not publish cost estimates for nuclear fusion.</p><p><strong><em>Table
1: Levelised cost estimates for different technologies, technology specific hurdle
rates, sensitivities around high/low capital costs</em></strong></p><table><tbody><tr><td><p>£/MWh</p><p>£2012</p></td><td><p>Projects
commissioning in 2014,</p><p>£/MWh</p></td><td><p>Projects commissioning in 2020,</p><p>£/MWh</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>Nuclear</p></td><td><p>n.a.</p></td><td><p>79
– 102</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>Offshore wind Round 2</p></td><td><p>131 - 168</p></td><td><p>105
– 135</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>Offshore wind Round 3</p></td><td><p>144 - 189</p></td><td><p>115
- 152</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>Large scale solar PV</p></td><td><p>114 - 131</p></td><td><p>83
- 94</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>CCGT (gas) *</p></td><td><p>73 - 76</p></td><td><p>79
- 83</p></td></tr></tbody></table><p><em>* CCGT: Combined Cycle Gas Turbine</em></p><p>The
levelised cost of a particular generation technology is the ratio of the total costs
of a generic plant to the total amount of electricity expected to be generated over
the plant’s lifetime (per megawatt hour). Levelised cost estimates are highly sensitive
to the assumptions used for capital costs, fuel and EU ETS allowance prices, operating
costs, load factor, discount rate and other drivers and this means that there is significant
uncertainty around these estimates. Estimates of levelised costs differ from the retail
electricity prices that are paid by consumers (i.e. on delivery of electricity).</p>
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