First new U.S. nuclear reactor since 2016 is now in operation

Re:First new U.S. nuclear reactor since 2016 is now in opera... by est31 on Wednesday December 27, 2023 @08:38PM (#38788984)

> I picked a relatively large, recent, US based solar farm from the list of plants in wikipedia

> Agua Caliente Solar Project (2016)

Note that solar being cheaper than nuclear is a more recent phenomenon than 2016. The solar panel prices went from $0.63 to $0.26 in the time span between 2016 and 2022.

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/solar-pv-prices?time=2002...

A better example is Spotsylvania Solar/Highlander Solar: https://www.sheppardmullin.com/assets/htmldocuments/PFI%2020...

Construction costs: $905m USD

Nameplate capacity: 618 MW

I couldn't find used capacity factors but Yuma is one of the sunniest counties in the USA while Spotsylvania county is further north and also has less sunny days. With an assumed capacity factor of 18%, one gets 111 MW.

$905m / nameplate capacity = $1.48 USD per rated W

$905m / used capacity = $8.24 USD per realized W

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:First new U.S. nuclear reactor since 2016 is now in opera... by xbmcuser on Wednesday December 27, 2023 @09:33PM (#38789328)

This year alone prices for solar panels have dropped by 30-40%. The biggest reason for prices not dropping for solar farms/large scale solar at the moment is that the supply of other equipment needed like transformers etc can't meet the demand with delivery times having reached 2+ years. So the prices for solar will likely drop another 40%-50% in the next 2-3 years at least in the rest of the world maybe not in the US because of trade wars/restrictions.

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