With 500 acres of land, a former grid connection of over 1.5 gigawatts, and proximity to local ports, Aberthaw is an infrastructure developer’s dream. Making it a reality faster will require a recognition of former industrial sites as strategic national assets. Governments need more accountability to create value from these sites, and more national-level support for local officials to execute.
I looked up Battersea Power Station and Tate Modern. The former was idling for 30 years before refurb started in 2013. Tate Modern was dormant for nearly 20 years.
Prime infra collecting dust instead of creating value for decades - really reinforces your suggestion that there’s room for more national level decisiveness given what we can do with these sites
Exactly - and they can be iconic architectural masterpieces or enabling our data centre boom. We don't really have a national plan for what to do with them and how to accelerate this, even though we want to do more to revitalise and grow the UK's regional economies. Thanks for reading!
All the coal stn sites should be restricted to energy assets only as those grid connections are gold dust and absolutely key to decarbonisation. CCGTs with CCUS retrofit should have first call followed by BESS assets next. SMRs if they ever get off the ground would also be ideal candidates as well.
I am interested in your comment in the penultimate paragraph that China already does this at scale. Do you have any more detail on what they are doing?
I am primarily referring to converting coal mines into solar sites in China. When I visited Datong, China's 'coal capital', I saw this everywhere. It's also visible on Google Maps (no longer up to date), the satellite view is quite striking. This is happening all around the country, and GEM has a report on this that I reference which you might find interesting too. On all the other options for repurposing, I haven't seen as much research and while they've decommissioned the second largest quantity of coal power after the US, I haven't tracked what they do with those sites afterwards. https://globalenergymonitor.org/report/bright-side-of-the-mine/
Thank you. Though I guess this is mainly what is happening with mines that are no longer economic, and that it is still quite a significant net cost to close down a coal mine with a reasonable operating life ahead of it and convert it into solar.
Yes - these suggestions are conditional on the mine or asset being uneconomic and after a closure decision has been made. I am more pointing out that in places like the UK we don't use our mine land for this, and spoil tips still dot the landscape. For other assets we let them languish unused instead of rebuilding quickly. I could do a later financey post that runs the numbers on early shut in and rebuild vs remaining open, I suspect in many cases the new build won't be as valuable until the mines and power plants become uneconomic from lower demand/prices.
I looked up Battersea Power Station and Tate Modern. The former was idling for 30 years before refurb started in 2013. Tate Modern was dormant for nearly 20 years.
Prime infra collecting dust instead of creating value for decades - really reinforces your suggestion that there’s room for more national level decisiveness given what we can do with these sites
Exactly - and they can be iconic architectural masterpieces or enabling our data centre boom. We don't really have a national plan for what to do with them and how to accelerate this, even though we want to do more to revitalise and grow the UK's regional economies. Thanks for reading!
All the coal stn sites should be restricted to energy assets only as those grid connections are gold dust and absolutely key to decarbonisation. CCGTs with CCUS retrofit should have first call followed by BESS assets next. SMRs if they ever get off the ground would also be ideal candidates as well.
I am interested in your comment in the penultimate paragraph that China already does this at scale. Do you have any more detail on what they are doing?
I am primarily referring to converting coal mines into solar sites in China. When I visited Datong, China's 'coal capital', I saw this everywhere. It's also visible on Google Maps (no longer up to date), the satellite view is quite striking. This is happening all around the country, and GEM has a report on this that I reference which you might find interesting too. On all the other options for repurposing, I haven't seen as much research and while they've decommissioned the second largest quantity of coal power after the US, I haven't tracked what they do with those sites afterwards. https://globalenergymonitor.org/report/bright-side-of-the-mine/
Thank you. Though I guess this is mainly what is happening with mines that are no longer economic, and that it is still quite a significant net cost to close down a coal mine with a reasonable operating life ahead of it and convert it into solar.
Yes - these suggestions are conditional on the mine or asset being uneconomic and after a closure decision has been made. I am more pointing out that in places like the UK we don't use our mine land for this, and spoil tips still dot the landscape. For other assets we let them languish unused instead of rebuilding quickly. I could do a later financey post that runs the numbers on early shut in and rebuild vs remaining open, I suspect in many cases the new build won't be as valuable until the mines and power plants become uneconomic from lower demand/prices.