l'Actualité du Solaire

The latest edition of the study on the situation of the World Nuclear Industry, published by French nuclear consultant Mycle Schneider, underlines that the stagnation of the sector continues with only 2.4 GW of new nuclear production capacity commissioned last year,

compared to 98 GW for solar. Global operational nuclear capacity decreased by 2.1% to 362 GW at the end of June. "The number of reactors in operation in the world fell to 408 in mid-2020, which is lower than the level already reached in 1988 and 30 units below the historical peak of 438 in 2002".

The average cost of energy from nuclear power rose from $117 per MWh in 2015 to $155 by the end of 2019, while the average cost of solar power rose from $65/MWh to about $49 and that of wind power from $55 to $41. "What is remarkable about these trends is that the costs of renewable energy continue to fall due to incremental improvements in manufacturing and installation, while nuclear, despite the fact that it is the most expensive energy source in the world, is still the most expensive in the world. nuclear, despite more than half a century of industry experience, continues to see its costs rise," says the report, citing a recent study by Lazard, a financial advisory and asset management firm. "Nuclear power is now the most expensive form of generation, with the exception of advanced gas-fired plants.

This cost differential explains the small number of new installations

Six nuclear reactors will be connected to the network in 2019: three in Russia, two in China and one in South Korea. At the same time, five nuclear power plants were shut down last year and three others were shut down in the first half of this year; no nuclear facilities were commissioned from January to June 2020.

70% of all nuclear electricity in the world in 2019 was generated by five countries (in order of importance), the United States, France, China, Russia and South Korea. The United States and France accounted for 45 per cent of global nuclear power generation in 2019, two percentage points less than the previous year. France's share decreased by 3.5 per cent".

The average age of the world's nuclear reactor fleet is 30.7 years, with two-thirds of reactors operating for more than 31 years.

The number of reactors under construction has risen from 46 to 52 - 15 of which with a total production capacity of 14 GW are in China. Most of these projects have suffered delays of several years. Last year construction began on four plants in China and one each in Russia and the United Kingdom. Work on a nuclear power plant in Turkey began in the first half of 2020.

https://www.pv-magazine.com/2020/09/24/nuclear-power-is-now-the-most-expensive-form-of-generation-except-for-gas-peaking-plants/

PV Magazine of September 24th

NDLR This information is particularly important and, above all, not well known. In particular, the cost of operating nuclear power, which has become the most expensive form of electricity production, is completely ignored. One might have suspected this with the price concluded by EDF for the construction of the British power station at 11 ct € per kWh, which could only increase with the delays and other construction disappointments.

It should be noted that the construction period for nuclear power stations is particularly long (about ten years when all goes well). This means that the 52 power stations under construction were decided ten or fifteen years ago. It is very likely that the figure for investment decisions taken over the last three years is marginal, outside China.