|
|
|
|
|
|
by Ringz
787 days ago
|
|
|
„The venerable “baseload” concept—that grid stability needs gigawatt-scale, steadily operating thermal (steam-raising) power plants—reflects the valid and vital economic practice of dispatching power at least operating cost, so resources with lowest operating costs are run most. This traditional role of giant thermal plants led many people to suppose that such plants are always needed. But now that renewables with no fuel cost are taking over the “baseload” role of being dispatched whenever available, those big thermal plants are relegated to fewer operating hours, making the term “baseload” an obsolete honorific. Thermal plants must now adapt to follow the net load left after cost-effective efficiency, demand response, and real-time “base-cost” renewable supply have been dispatched. Nuclear power’s limited flexibility, and its technical and economic challenges when cycled, have thus become a handicap, complicating least-cost and stable grid operation with a rising share of zero-carbon, least-cost variable renewables. That is why Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) found that early closure of its well running Diablo Canyon reactors would save customers money and, by making the grid more flexible, raise renewables’ share. Those reactors had become cheaper to close than to run: the power systems’ shift to renewables had turned them from an asset to a liability, so they’ll be replaced by competitively procured low-carbon resources, saving both money and carbon.“ Source: https://www.worldnuclearreport.org/The-World-Nuclear-Industr... |
|
|
