Letter to the Daily Telegraph from Prof Stephen Bush which was not published.

Your report (22nd November) about the plans for a giant solar farm in Lincolnshire quotes the claimed “capacity” as being

“800 Megawatts – similar to that of one of the UK’s current nuclear power stations” .

This is a totally misleading comparison.

For a start the geographically nearest operating nuclear station, Sizewell B in Suffolk, has a rated capacity of 1188 MW not at all similar to 800 MW.

In any case, the only useful comparison is the annual generation of electricity. This is calculated from the capacity multiplied by the number of hours in the year (8760) multiplied by the so-called “load factor” representing the fraction of the year in which the plant is effectively working at full capacity. In the latest data release on 30th July by the Department of Energy Security and Net Zero the load factor for the nuclear reactors is given as 0.78 (i.e. 78 percent); for solar panels it is given as 0.10 (i.e. 10 percent).

This means that while Sizewell steadily produces around 8100 gigawatt hours per year, the planned solar farm at Blankney would produce only 700 gigawatt hours per year, mostly in the summer and only in daylight.

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