Question to the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero:

To ask the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, what analysis his Department has undertaken of the comparative cost to consumers of (a) an electricity system with nuclear as part of the energy mix and (b) a system based on variable renewables alone; and if he will place a copy of this assessment in the House of Commons Library.

The “Modelling 2050 – Electricity System Analysis” publication,^[1]presents aggregated outputs for thousands of power sector scenarios in 2050 and shows that a range of different technology mixes can achieve Net Zero at similar costs (Figure 11). This work did not look at a renewable only scenario (e.g. wind, solar, and tidal) as this cannot ensure security of supply.

^[1] https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/modelling-2050-electricity-system-analysis