Nuclear Costs Remain Competitive

Uranium (Nuclear Minerals) / Nuclear Power - Economics, Design, & Industry

Date posted: 09/05/15

IEA and NEA report that the cost of nuclear power is in line with other baseload energy technologies, but new nuclear power plants can generate more electricity and more cheaply over their full lifetime if financing costs are low. This is the conclusion of a recent joint study by the OECD Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA) and the International Energy Agency (IEA). Projected Costs of Generating Electricity - 2015 Edition is the eighth edition of the IEA and NEA's joint study of the levelized lifetime costs of generating electricity for a broad set of generation technologies. The 2015 study focuses on the expected costs of technologies being built now and commissioned by 2020. The study has been published at varying intervals since 1981, with the last edition dated 2010. The forward-looking study calculates the levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) using discount rates of 3%, 7% and 10%, using a combination of generic, country-specific and technology-specific assumptions agreed by a steering expert group to calculate costs at the plant level. The report is based on data for 181 plants in 22 countries, including three non-OECD countries (Brazil, China and South Africa), including natural gas, coal, nuclear, solar voltaic, onshore and offshore wind, hydro, geothermal, biomass and combined heat and power plants. There is a marked shift in the data set towards renewables compared to previous reports, which the authors say indicates an increased interest in low-carbon technologies on the part of the participating governments who also provide subsidies. For baseload generation - combined cycle gas turbine, coal and nuclear - the study found nuclear to be the lowest cost option or all countries at a 3% discount rate. However, nuclear plants are more capital-intensive than either gas or coal, and this is reflected in increasing projected costs for nuclear at the 7% and 10% discount rates. Read on. Interesting report.