Re:Wind farm in Germany is being dismantled to expand coal mine
by legulere on Monday May 01, 2023 @10:56PM
(#35782744)
Electricity use isn’t constant throughout the day or the week, so you also have to produce less. This is called load following and a good thing.
Nuclear reactors are pretty bad at it, but if you have a lot of nuclear reactors like France does you have to do it anyway, which is why France has a lower capacity factor for nuclear than other countries.
For fossil-fuel- and biogas-driven plants a low capacity factor usually isn’t a big problem as fuel costs dominate. For nuclear fixed costs mostly dominate which means that a low capacity factor also means much higher costs.
Re:Wind farm in Germany is being dismantled to expand coal mine
by Ekaros on Tuesday May 02, 2023 @03:10AM
(#35784332)
Nuclear plants can load follow just fine. They just prefer not to as the capital costs and not fuel is biggest factor. So might as well keep producing power if the grid stability accepts it.
Nuclear power is the most reliable and consistent energy source in the world. It's not even close! If you are going to spew garage, please cite it. This isn't reddit.
According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), the average capacity factor (which measures the actual electricity output of a power plant compared to its maximum potential output) for nuclear power plants around the world was 81% in 2019.
This is higher than most other types of power plants, including coal-fired power plants (which had an average capacity factor of 53% in 2019) and natural gas-fired power plants (which had an average capacity factor of 46% in 2019).
The reason why there were "massive shutdowns" was because they didn't do maintenance during COVID as well as noticed abnormal corrosion.
Regarding uptime, heres some data.
Nuclear Reactor Up Time.
User What is the average up time of a nuclear reactor in France?
ChatGPT As of my knowledge cutoff date of September 2021, the average up time of a nuclear reactor in France was about 75%, according to data from the French electricity company EDF. This means that, on average, the reactors were operational and producing electricity for about 75% of the time. However, it's important to note that this figure can vary from year to year and from reactor to reactor, depending on factors such as maintenance schedules, unexpected shutdowns, and other issues
User Can you cite your sources for uptime of nuclear power in France? chatGPT Sure, here are some sources for the uptime of nuclear power in France:
According to the French electricity company EDF, the average availability rate for its nuclear fleet in 2020 was 75.9%. Source: https://www.edf.fr/en/the-edf-group/edf-in-france/the-nuclea...
The World Nuclear Association also reports an average capacity factor (uptime) for nuclear power plants in France of 73.3% in 2019. Source: https://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/country-pr...
The French government's Ministry of Ecological Transition provides a quarterly report on the performance of the country's electricity generation sources, including nuclear power. The latest report, covering Q4 2020, states that the availability rate for the nuclear fleet during that period was 71.2%. Source: https://www.ecologie.gouv.fr/sites/default/files/Performance...
Sources for other statements. https://www.france24.com/en/france/20220825-france-prolongs-...
https://www.economist.com/europe/2022/10/13/frances-nuclear-...