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)
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 from some technologies, for their December 2008 report
http://www.theccc.org.uk/pdf/TSO-ClimateChange.pdf
as set out in the following table, including construction, operation and maintenance costs and where applicable the cost of carbon allowances under the European Union emissions trading scheme. Moreover, for nuclear, they also include the costs of decommissioning and waste.
Technology Levelised cost (£/MWh)2010 Coal fired plant Coal—central fuel 54 Gas fired plant Combined cycle gas turbine—central fuel 53 Nuclear plant Nuclear 51 Source: The Committee on Climate Change (2008) “Building a low-carbon economy” p189
Government estimates for the cost of electricity generated from hydroelectric plant were published in the Department of Trade and Industry report “Impact of banding the Renewables Obligation—Costs of electricity production” (2007)
http://www.berr.gov.uk/Tiles/file39038.pdf
Technology—Hydroelectric Levelised cost (£/MWh) 2010 Small scale (.<1.25 MW)—central cost 71 Mid scale (1.25-20 MW)—central cost 63 Source: DTI (2006) “Impact of banding the Renewables Obligation—Costs of electricity production” p32-34
The estimated costs of tidal generation were estimated as part of the response to the consultation on the Renewable Energy Strategy. These are set out as follows:
Technology Capital cost (£/kW)2008 Operating cost (£/kW/year) Availability (percentage) Tidal stream 2,800-3,800 75-80 30-40 Source: Redpoint Trilemma (2008) “Implementation of EU 2020 Renewable Target in the UK Electricity Sector: Renewable Support Schemes.” http://decc.gov.uk/en/content/cms/consultations/cons_res/rescon_support/rescon_support.aspx
Government do not have a recent cost estimate for the price per megawatt hour of electricity generated from oil-fired plant.
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.