Re:Study identifies reasons for soaring nuclear plant cost o...
by epistasis on Friday November 20, 2020 @02:28PM
(#25163926)
And they can't find customers.
Their target price, of $55/MWh, would probably be acceptable if delivered today.
But when you look at hybrid solar/battery projects, we are already getting close to $55/MWh for fully dispatchable energy, that doesn't have to be run 24x7 like nuclear but actually matches the load curve of the grid.
Seriously, there are battery projects being deployed now, attached to solar, with a storage cost of $80/MWh, and energy cost of $20/MWh. Since overnight demand is small compared to daytime, only about half of the energy needs to be stored. That averages out to $60/MWh, today. In 5 years it will be something like $40-$50. In 10 years, when NuScale deploys, the cost of solar+storage will be $30-40/MWh. And it might even get cheaper.
NuScale may be useful for polar locations without much wind, but I don't foresee them having a huge addressable market.
Their target price, of $55/MWh, would probably be acceptable if delivered today.
But when you look at hybrid solar/battery projects, we are already getting close to $55/MWh for fully dispatchable energy, that doesn't have to be run 24x7 like nuclear but actually matches the load curve of the grid.
Seriously, there are battery projects being deployed now, attached to solar, with a storage cost of $80/MWh, and energy cost of $20/MWh. Since overnight demand is small compared to daytime, only about half of the energy needs to be stored. That averages out to $60/MWh, today. In 5 years it will be something like $40-$50. In 10 years, when NuScale deploys, the cost of solar+storage will be $30-40/MWh. And it might even get cheaper.
NuScale may be useful for polar locations without much wind, but I don't foresee them having a huge addressable market.