[Reason077]

> ”Nuclear has a load factor of 95%”

That’s very optimistic. Perhaps an ideal nuclear plant with a perfect operating record might approach 95%, but real-world load factors are lower as most plants end up requiring extended outages for repairs as some point in their lifetime.

France’s lifetime load factors for its nuclear plants are around 77%, but that declined sharply in recent years to 72% in 2020-21 and even lower in 2022 due to many plants being taken offline for repairs. In the UK, load factors are even lower: 67% during 1970-2017.

[pydry]

I didn't realize it went as low as that.

Some wind farms can hit 65%

https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/worlds-first-fl...

[simonh]

True but with nuclear you can usually schedule the downtime well in advance. With wind it just stops whenever, whether you’re ready for it or not.

[btreecat]

Funny enough, this is why you see wind farms where there is a decent prevailing wind.

The biggest issue is usually our lack of capacity to store/transmit. They shut of some turbines because they over produce for the Network capacity.

[7952]

But downtime of a turbine only affects one turbine. The rest can carry on as normal and generate power. With nuclear you can lose 1000MW all at once.

[pydry]

You have to fire up the gas generators either way to fill in the gaps.

Scheduled nuclear downtime isnt any greener than the a slow wind day.

[olejorgenb]

That's the same as saying nuclear can hit 95% while the real-world average is more like 80%. For wind that number seems to be around 40% (both land and offshore from a quick search). Guess the jury is out on how more extensive maintenance will affect these projects(?), but down time for wind turbines are probably a lot less than for nuclear plants.

Capacity factors for wind projects surely are highly dependent on location, not just technology. Remains to be seen how many premium locations are suitable?