First planned small nuclear reactor plant in the US has been canceled

Re:First planned small nuclear reactor plant in the US has b... by kragen on Thursday November 09, 2023 @01:12PM (#38208546)

i've often wondered why germany's pv capacity factor is so terrible, thanks

prc's pv capacity factor is also around 10% last i checked, which is also absurdly low and suggests that they maybe aren't as capitalist as they seem in important respects (i'd be interested in updates)

by 'may' do you mean 'many'

it was easier to justify solar tracking (and concentrating solar, and nuclear) fifteen years ago when solar panels are expensive. but now you have to trade off twenty dollars in mechanical parts for tracking against 180 more peak watts of solar panels. with maintenance costs it's easy for the balance to come out in favor of a simpler system without tracking

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Re:First planned small nuclear reactor plant in the US has b... by Retric on Thursday November 09, 2023 @01:48PM (#38209143)

Grid scale tracking systems keep getting cheaper but neither always wins.

Solar tracking makes more sense when you look at wholesale rates over a day. Peak demand prices start right as static solar production falls off so you would need batteries not just more solar panels to sell at those rates. On top of this costs like land, inverters, and wiring gets amaorterised across more hours of production.

Wholesale prices get influenced by the deployed solar power including rooftop solar. Which adds yet another dimension to these models.

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Re:First planned small nuclear reactor plant in the US has b... by kragen on Saturday November 11, 2023 @12:10AM (#38227812)

if peak demand prices are so predictable maybe you could just angle the panels a bit to the west when you install them instead of maintaining a bunch of motors

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