The Government have carried out analysis on generation costs in recent years to inform policy decisions. Some of these estimates were published as part of the Energy Review (2006) at:
http://www.berr.gov.uk/files/file32014.pdf
More recently the Committee on Climate Change (CCC) have published estimated levelised costs (£/MWh, in 2008 prices) associated with 1 MWh of electricity generated, for their December 2008 report at:
http://www.theccc.org.uk/pdf/TSO-ClimateChange.pdf,
as set out in table 1 and include construction, operation and maintenance costs and where applicable the cost of carbon allowances (EU emissions trading scheme). Moreover, for nuclear, they also include the costs of decommissioning and waste.
It should be noted that the estimates of levelised costs for different types of electricity generation are highly sensitive to the assumptions used for capital costs, fuel and EU ETS allowance prices, operating costs, load factor, and other drivers. In reality, there are large uncertainties and ranges around these figures.
Technology Levelised cost (£/MWh) 2010 Wind plant Onshore wind (high wind) 65 Offshore wind (high wind) 83 Coal-fired plant Coal—central fuel 54 Gas-fired plant CCGT—central fuel 53 Nuclear plant Nuclear 51 Source: The Committee on Climate Change (2008) ‘Building a low-carbon economy’ p189.
The costs of most generation technologies have increased over the past 18 months, primarily due to increases in input prices. Work is ongoing to update Government’s cost assumptions for different forms of generation.