In addition to the news that the turbines whether CT or CC are more expensive, the wind and solar people won't mention that there are a lot of wind projects that are getting very long in the tooth. Heading into 20 plus years old. The bet the windy types are making is that we will embrace "repowering" of the big wind projects and one can only guess at the cost of decommissioning, (decommissioning costs are built into the financial models), but repowering meaning a new set of towers, nacelles, blades etc with more theoretical generation capacity or, just blade, gear box etc replacement with slightly improved capacity, is a new financial kettle of fish. Up grades to infrastructure, like the underground and over head power distribution systems, the switch yards, and the interconnection to the utility and grid operations, are costs that have to borne by someone. The federal subsidies are drying so we may get a view of the "real" cost of wind and maybe solar, as those panels start to fade and fail. Then we can talk about the junk that is left over from the repowering effort. 300 foot surf boards aka the blades and so forth, made of toxic materials which don't lend themselves well to being broken down into their elemental state. It has been a canard for years now, maybe the specter of one's imminent hanging, will bring clarity to the minds of those that wish the rate payers to continue to bear the burden of this abject stupidity we have been subjected to for the last 20 years. One ought not count on it, but we can all hope.
I had a brief and pointless argument with my wife's (pro wind) sister this week. She raised the issue of nuclear waste, to which I pointed out that the nuclear waste from her lifetime's supply of nuclear electricity would (reportedly) fit into a coke can, and what about the huge mass of non-recyclable wind turbine blades, to which the response was "they'll think of something".
They've already "thought of something"; it's called a landfill. The scale of these blade graveyards is horrifying, and it is in addition to all the coal ash ponds produced alongside them. Visit Sweetwater, TX on google maps, and switch to satellite view to see one which hasn't yet been covered with dirt.
A 3 MW wind turbine in Texas has about 70 tonnes of blades which over its lifetime 250,000 MWh. A coal plant will generate 10-20,000 tonnes of coal ash and sludge from the scrubbers to generate the same amount of power
Respectfully, I'm not convinced that is a valid comparison. If you are going to compare apples to apples, you must ask how many tonnes of waste are created from the production of a like amount of energy. You don't find 3 MW coal plants, or 3 MW nuclear plants.
A 1,000 MW nuclear plant, with a lifetime of 80 years, will produce about 650 TWH of energy. This will result in about 2,400 tonnes of spent fuel. To generate 650 TWH of wind energy, you would need 10,800 MW of installed capacity working over 80 years (4 replacement/refit cycles). This would result in about 22,000 tonnes of waste over that lifetime. A coal plant would produce over 19 million tonnes.
Clearly, nuclear power produces far less waste than wind or coal. A combined cycle gas turbine produces very little solid waste. Waste generated by a hydro plant is difficult to quantify; depends on the type of plant and its location. Waste is organic, and would consist of river/canal debris.
They've been fed non-stop wind supporting propaganda for 20 years. A driving game I no longer have the stomach for is to listen to NPR and measure the time between stories either promoting the Green New Scam, or that promote the Palestinians. I get a mean time somewhere near about 15 minutes.
(Note, the above is not a rigorous measurement.)
Now imagine someone driving around with only half an ear listening and not applying any energy or critical thinking to the listening.... And doing that day after day, after day.
When I had them, I couldn't even convince my engineer coworkers that wind is a terrible idea. And they're equipped to make the assessment themselves. But they wouldn't. I couldn't even get them to believe that wind capacity factors are near 30%. I'd offer to show them the sites that report such, and they were not interested. They'd insist the wind turbines are always turning.
Maybe I'm just not convincing, but this seems like the bizarre and difficult to accept (for an observer) effect that propaganda has over time.
And this brain washed attitude seems to be ubiquitous amongst tech workers. Then they cover their delusion in a thick layer of confidence in their technical prowess, even though they have not applied any of those skills to actually thinking about the issue. They've simply marinated their brains in propaganda.
I saw an interesting tweet from a tech guy, don't remember his name, but he's apparently big on AI now and he said that the climate crisis was the next big issue. Apparently, that guy is not all on board with more gas to fuel it. These people just glom onto whatever is popular in the moment and hope something sticks.
In the UK 75% of the current nuclear waste is waste from military development during the last century so nothing to do with nuclear power. I suspect a similar situation exists in the US.
Yep, trying to power a grid with renewables is the Red Queen's Race of energy.
After one has built as fast as one can for 15 - 20 years, one must start replacing what was already built and if one hasn't reached the goal yet, then building efforts must be redoubled to continue increasing capacity.
A similar thing happens with shale wells, where they produce a lot up front and then fall off quickly compared to conventional wells. The big difference is you can improve drilling techniques to access more energy in the rocks, you can't make the wind blow.
Insightful comments on wind power. We are just evaluating an opportunity to buy the wind turbines behind one of our PPA's, at roughly mid-life. The project was commissioned in 20212 with 1.6MW turbines. A key question is how will these turbines will perform from both a generation and maintenance cost perspective over the 2nd half of their expected life. Given how quickly turbine design and size developed over the last 15 years, it is unlikely that anyone knows the answer. In addition, there's some probability that the owner intended to repower the turbines after the PTC expire in year 10 and was less concerned about their long-term performance.
Don't forget disposal costs of hundreds of thousands of dollars per turbine in less than 10 years. Is your PPA set up to pay those? Or can you "go bankrupt" and leave the land owner holding the bag?
Yes, was involved at the early edges of the Gamsea repowering ideas and the merger with Siemens. The idea was centered mostly on blade and gearbox box technology incrementally gaining a few more kilowatts. But, doing enough to get the goody grab bag of tax credits and or REC’s and or both. All of which would entice new investment. Sound familiar? The wind regime didn’t change, production might improve at the margins, but yo were still stuck with the Model T. The EBB’s are great!!
Thank you EBBs. For me, your article nicely complements the (British) book I'm currently enjoying: 'Going Nuclear: How the Atom Will Save the World and Build a Sustainable Future' by Tim Gregory. In one well-written chapter, the author concisely and powerfully demolishes the case for widespread wind and solar, pointing out that in practice, they guarantee dependence on fossil fuels, which their advocates are very keen to avoid, whether you are or not.
He also, with numbers, contrasts the futile and hugely expensive efforts of the Germans, with the French and their effective nuclear fleet.
Nuclear needs even more fossil fuel or storage backup. In 2022 France's nuclear output fell by 40% compared to its peak level, no developed country has seen combined renewables fall by more than 8% over a year.
And it is not just France, Belgium in 2015 and a gain in 2018, Canada 1993 to 2014, South Korea 20% between 2015 and 2018
Interesting - reminds me somehow of back emf in electric motors. Also, the same thing is happening with electric vehicles - rising electric prices are making them much less desirable.
Good due diligence questions. I was responsible for the owners construction oversight on the Idaho Wind Project on the Hagerman Plateau in Idaho, (GE 1.5MW WTG’s) 183 MW’s total, as well as the Canadian Hills project near Calumet Oklahoma. It was 50% Repower 2.0MW’s and Mitsubishi's 2.0 MW units. IWP was commissioned in 2010 and Canadian Hills in 2012. Based on just the first couple of years of maintenance, it is likely that a very strident diligence needs to be done. Everything breaks. Also these projects are generally owned by PE firms that don’t really know much about the technical complexities of operating them. They want the money as it spins off and then hope the greater fool theory rescues them from the back end and the back leverage on the project. Without PTC’s, ITC’s and Tax equity most projects would fail financially. Siemens bought Gamesa Wind with the notion that “repowering” would be a major part of the future business model. It seems a tough row to hoe. The gear just takes such a beating, unless the owners are really with it in terms of how the units are operated and maintained, LOTS can go wrong. A 400 ton crane needed to replace a gear box 400 feet in the air, comes in pieces, it takes 52 tractor trailers to being it on site and you a couple of 30 ton cranes to put it together. On and on it goes. Good luck with the effort!
A few perspectives below on new and existing nuclear costs to add color to the gas and renewables discussion.
New Nuclear Economics | I agree with the comments that new nuclear energy is very expensive. I have not seen any comparison of resource cost metrics where new nuclear is not the most expensive resource. Without addressing the value of nuclear’s dispatchability and carbon free operation, I’ll address the long-term economic value and cost effectiveness of nuclear given the potential for a nuclear resource to operate 60+ years.
Nuclear Extended Life Economics | I recently completed an economic analysis of extending our large nuclear resource for an additional 20-years. This represents a potential 2nd license extension for each of the units. One economic lens is the comparison of Overnight Capital Costs (OCC), for either extending the nuclear resource or developing a new Combined Cycle Gas Turbine (CCGT). The cost for extending the nuclear resource includes both mandatory capital investment (license costs, replacing end of life systems) and substantial plant reliability investment in the $2.5B range. Even with this substantial capital investment commencing immediately, the OCC for extending our nuclear resource is 5%-10% of that of a new CCGT.
Another economic competitiveness lens developed by this nuclear analysis was the Levelized Cost Of Energy (LCOE). The incremental LCOE for the plant’s extended operation was in the $110/MWH range (2025 economics). While this may seem to be less attractive compared to today’s costs, it likely will be very attractive during the actual 2046-2066 operational period. In addition, the LCOE for the combined 1st and 2nd license renewals would be in the very competitive $55/MWH range.
A related note is that I anticipate the next area of focus for existing nuclear resources is the feasibility of a 3rd license extension (100-year endpoint). I just added this functionality to a nuclear capital model I’ve just refreshed at leadership’s request. I’ve heard there are some significant technical challenges to achieving this. However, I’d anticipate that in 20-years that the economics of this will be as attractive as our current, proposed license extension – even with billions of capital investment.
Large Reactor versus SMR Economics | One economic perspective that I have seen multiple times is that the large reactors will be more cost effective than the SMR’s. My preliminary analysis of the AP1000 versus multiple SMR technologies confirms this from an LCOE perspective, especially when using dual-AP1000 projects (our internal guideline is that we don’t want to build one of any nuclear technology, always at least 2 co-located units). At the present time, I would estimate AP1000 LCOE’s to be 10%-20% lower than that of a few co-located SMR’s.
Increasing SMR Cost Competitiveness | There are multiple factors that could enable SMRs to approach cost parity with large reactors over the next 20+ years. One factor is development of a substantial orderbook to enable rapid advancement toward anticipated Nth Of A Kind (NOAK) project costs. Key enablers to achieve this include:
• Developing pricing leverage over the supply chain
• Effective documentation and transfer of construction lessons learned to drive down construction costs
• A focus on identifying and developing projects with multiple co-located units to achieve site and operational cost efficiencies.
New Nuclear Cost Discovery | My current view is that we are still in the “cost-discovery” stage for all SMR’s from both a First Of A Kind (FOAK) and NOAK perspective. We have received preliminary cost estimates from several SMR OEMs over the past 30 months, in addition to others who have not shared any costs to date. A telling fact is that where we’ve received multiple cost updates, the estimated cost metric has always increased. In one case, the updated OCC increased by roughly 40% over a 12-month timeframe. This drives my expectation that we’ll continue to see progressively higher FOAK project costs across all SMR technologies.
The conceptual pathway to the target NOAK cost is a learning curve applied to the FOAK costs. I’ve seen a rough estimate of 88% from a DOE study. My current thinking is that two learning curves should be applied to each project. A technology learning curve tracks cost efficiency associated with the prior quantity of projects / powerblocks completed while a site learning curve should be applied to capture the efficiencies associated with co-locating multiple SMRs on one site.
My rationale for believing that the SMRs are still in a NOAK cost discovery phase is the inability of OEMs to articulate a specific strategy to progress down the learning curve from the FOAK project. OEMs have been ambiguous on contracting strategy for large components. In addition, plans for using modular construction appear to be in a trial and error phase.
I love the article, as I always do when you publish, but...
[NITPICK] The first paragraph in your discussion of CT gas plant prices seems to be off by a factor of 1000. Either you meant to list cost per KW of capacity, or you left three 0s off each cost number, or I am very confused. [/NITPICK]
Very timely piece. We are currently seeing the $2,000+/kW CCGT costs with added concern of uncertainty if the turbines will actually be delivered on-schedule (2030ish). I've heard a new CT will likely be commissioning with a spare turbine, given the new turbine is a year+ late.
Another aspect to this may be new generation resource alignment with projected load forecasts. I've seen 2 source confirming the flat nature of emergent data center load. A presentation on our current data center load indicated just a +/- 3% variance from the average load. In addition, a series of projected future load shapes confirmed a flattening of the load curve.
In addition to the news that the turbines whether CT or CC are more expensive, the wind and solar people won't mention that there are a lot of wind projects that are getting very long in the tooth. Heading into 20 plus years old. The bet the windy types are making is that we will embrace "repowering" of the big wind projects and one can only guess at the cost of decommissioning, (decommissioning costs are built into the financial models), but repowering meaning a new set of towers, nacelles, blades etc with more theoretical generation capacity or, just blade, gear box etc replacement with slightly improved capacity, is a new financial kettle of fish. Up grades to infrastructure, like the underground and over head power distribution systems, the switch yards, and the interconnection to the utility and grid operations, are costs that have to borne by someone. The federal subsidies are drying so we may get a view of the "real" cost of wind and maybe solar, as those panels start to fade and fail. Then we can talk about the junk that is left over from the repowering effort. 300 foot surf boards aka the blades and so forth, made of toxic materials which don't lend themselves well to being broken down into their elemental state. It has been a canard for years now, maybe the specter of one's imminent hanging, will bring clarity to the minds of those that wish the rate payers to continue to bear the burden of this abject stupidity we have been subjected to for the last 20 years. One ought not count on it, but we can all hope.
I had a brief and pointless argument with my wife's (pro wind) sister this week. She raised the issue of nuclear waste, to which I pointed out that the nuclear waste from her lifetime's supply of nuclear electricity would (reportedly) fit into a coke can, and what about the huge mass of non-recyclable wind turbine blades, to which the response was "they'll think of something".
Hilarious
They've already "thought of something"; it's called a landfill. The scale of these blade graveyards is horrifying, and it is in addition to all the coal ash ponds produced alongside them. Visit Sweetwater, TX on google maps, and switch to satellite view to see one which hasn't yet been covered with dirt.
A 3 MW wind turbine in Texas has about 70 tonnes of blades which over its lifetime 250,000 MWh. A coal plant will generate 10-20,000 tonnes of coal ash and sludge from the scrubbers to generate the same amount of power
Respectfully, I'm not convinced that is a valid comparison. If you are going to compare apples to apples, you must ask how many tonnes of waste are created from the production of a like amount of energy. You don't find 3 MW coal plants, or 3 MW nuclear plants.
A 1,000 MW nuclear plant, with a lifetime of 80 years, will produce about 650 TWH of energy. This will result in about 2,400 tonnes of spent fuel. To generate 650 TWH of wind energy, you would need 10,800 MW of installed capacity working over 80 years (4 replacement/refit cycles). This would result in about 22,000 tonnes of waste over that lifetime. A coal plant would produce over 19 million tonnes.
Clearly, nuclear power produces far less waste than wind or coal. A combined cycle gas turbine produces very little solid waste. Waste generated by a hydro plant is difficult to quantify; depends on the type of plant and its location. Waste is organic, and would consist of river/canal debris.
They've been fed non-stop wind supporting propaganda for 20 years. A driving game I no longer have the stomach for is to listen to NPR and measure the time between stories either promoting the Green New Scam, or that promote the Palestinians. I get a mean time somewhere near about 15 minutes.
(Note, the above is not a rigorous measurement.)
Now imagine someone driving around with only half an ear listening and not applying any energy or critical thinking to the listening.... And doing that day after day, after day.
When I had them, I couldn't even convince my engineer coworkers that wind is a terrible idea. And they're equipped to make the assessment themselves. But they wouldn't. I couldn't even get them to believe that wind capacity factors are near 30%. I'd offer to show them the sites that report such, and they were not interested. They'd insist the wind turbines are always turning.
Maybe I'm just not convincing, but this seems like the bizarre and difficult to accept (for an observer) effect that propaganda has over time.
And this brain washed attitude seems to be ubiquitous amongst tech workers. Then they cover their delusion in a thick layer of confidence in their technical prowess, even though they have not applied any of those skills to actually thinking about the issue. They've simply marinated their brains in propaganda.
I saw an interesting tweet from a tech guy, don't remember his name, but he's apparently big on AI now and he said that the climate crisis was the next big issue. Apparently, that guy is not all on board with more gas to fuel it. These people just glom onto whatever is popular in the moment and hope something sticks.
In the UK 75% of the current nuclear waste is waste from military development during the last century so nothing to do with nuclear power. I suspect a similar situation exists in the US.
lol. That last sentence really sums up the depth of thought perfectly.
You left out the irradiated reactor mechanisms steam generator, mine waste etc.
If you're going to call out mine waste for nuclear, you should do it for the mineral processing for wind, solar, and storage too.
Yep, trying to power a grid with renewables is the Red Queen's Race of energy.
After one has built as fast as one can for 15 - 20 years, one must start replacing what was already built and if one hasn't reached the goal yet, then building efforts must be redoubled to continue increasing capacity.
A similar thing happens with shale wells, where they produce a lot up front and then fall off quickly compared to conventional wells. The big difference is you can improve drilling techniques to access more energy in the rocks, you can't make the wind blow.
Insightful comments on wind power. We are just evaluating an opportunity to buy the wind turbines behind one of our PPA's, at roughly mid-life. The project was commissioned in 20212 with 1.6MW turbines. A key question is how will these turbines will perform from both a generation and maintenance cost perspective over the 2nd half of their expected life. Given how quickly turbine design and size developed over the last 15 years, it is unlikely that anyone knows the answer. In addition, there's some probability that the owner intended to repower the turbines after the PTC expire in year 10 and was less concerned about their long-term performance.
Were I a ratepayer, a question I would ask is, do refits and maintenance upgrades quality for ETC and PTCs?
They requalify the project for PTCs yes
thank you. Does the BBB cancel those PTCs?
I think this is the mindset a lot of developers had over the last two decades.
Don't forget disposal costs of hundreds of thousands of dollars per turbine in less than 10 years. Is your PPA set up to pay those? Or can you "go bankrupt" and leave the land owner holding the bag?
Hi Charles, interesting points. I think most repowers thus far have been partial repowers that reuse the existing towers.
Yes, was involved at the early edges of the Gamsea repowering ideas and the merger with Siemens. The idea was centered mostly on blade and gearbox box technology incrementally gaining a few more kilowatts. But, doing enough to get the goody grab bag of tax credits and or REC’s and or both. All of which would entice new investment. Sound familiar? The wind regime didn’t change, production might improve at the margins, but yo were still stuck with the Model T. The EBB’s are great!!
This is great! Thanks again for sharing your experience with us.
Thank you EBBs. For me, your article nicely complements the (British) book I'm currently enjoying: 'Going Nuclear: How the Atom Will Save the World and Build a Sustainable Future' by Tim Gregory. In one well-written chapter, the author concisely and powerfully demolishes the case for widespread wind and solar, pointing out that in practice, they guarantee dependence on fossil fuels, which their advocates are very keen to avoid, whether you are or not.
He also, with numbers, contrasts the futile and hugely expensive efforts of the Germans, with the French and their effective nuclear fleet.
Nuclear needs even more fossil fuel or storage backup. In 2022 France's nuclear output fell by 40% compared to its peak level, no developed country has seen combined renewables fall by more than 8% over a year.
And it is not just France, Belgium in 2015 and a gain in 2018, Canada 1993 to 2014, South Korea 20% between 2015 and 2018
Great piece, keep up the good work!
$4 gas! Still a bargain!
Not compared to the existing coal and nuclear plants!
That is true! Unfortunately, the war on coal has been very detrimental to coal fired plants…… maybe the tide will change
Interesting - reminds me somehow of back emf in electric motors. Also, the same thing is happening with electric vehicles - rising electric prices are making them much less desirable.
Absolultely
Outstanding points!!
Thanks, Stu!
LCOE? https://stephenheins.substack.com/p/headline-why-is-cheap-electricity?publication_id=954539&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=posts-open-in-app&r=1onuea&triedRedirect=true
Good due diligence questions. I was responsible for the owners construction oversight on the Idaho Wind Project on the Hagerman Plateau in Idaho, (GE 1.5MW WTG’s) 183 MW’s total, as well as the Canadian Hills project near Calumet Oklahoma. It was 50% Repower 2.0MW’s and Mitsubishi's 2.0 MW units. IWP was commissioned in 2010 and Canadian Hills in 2012. Based on just the first couple of years of maintenance, it is likely that a very strident diligence needs to be done. Everything breaks. Also these projects are generally owned by PE firms that don’t really know much about the technical complexities of operating them. They want the money as it spins off and then hope the greater fool theory rescues them from the back end and the back leverage on the project. Without PTC’s, ITC’s and Tax equity most projects would fail financially. Siemens bought Gamesa Wind with the notion that “repowering” would be a major part of the future business model. It seems a tough row to hoe. The gear just takes such a beating, unless the owners are really with it in terms of how the units are operated and maintained, LOTS can go wrong. A 400 ton crane needed to replace a gear box 400 feet in the air, comes in pieces, it takes 52 tractor trailers to being it on site and you a couple of 30 ton cranes to put it together. On and on it goes. Good luck with the effort!
Thanks for this insight, Charles. It's crazy how much of the rush was fueled by taxpayer money.
A few perspectives below on new and existing nuclear costs to add color to the gas and renewables discussion.
New Nuclear Economics | I agree with the comments that new nuclear energy is very expensive. I have not seen any comparison of resource cost metrics where new nuclear is not the most expensive resource. Without addressing the value of nuclear’s dispatchability and carbon free operation, I’ll address the long-term economic value and cost effectiveness of nuclear given the potential for a nuclear resource to operate 60+ years.
Nuclear Extended Life Economics | I recently completed an economic analysis of extending our large nuclear resource for an additional 20-years. This represents a potential 2nd license extension for each of the units. One economic lens is the comparison of Overnight Capital Costs (OCC), for either extending the nuclear resource or developing a new Combined Cycle Gas Turbine (CCGT). The cost for extending the nuclear resource includes both mandatory capital investment (license costs, replacing end of life systems) and substantial plant reliability investment in the $2.5B range. Even with this substantial capital investment commencing immediately, the OCC for extending our nuclear resource is 5%-10% of that of a new CCGT.
Another economic competitiveness lens developed by this nuclear analysis was the Levelized Cost Of Energy (LCOE). The incremental LCOE for the plant’s extended operation was in the $110/MWH range (2025 economics). While this may seem to be less attractive compared to today’s costs, it likely will be very attractive during the actual 2046-2066 operational period. In addition, the LCOE for the combined 1st and 2nd license renewals would be in the very competitive $55/MWH range.
A related note is that I anticipate the next area of focus for existing nuclear resources is the feasibility of a 3rd license extension (100-year endpoint). I just added this functionality to a nuclear capital model I’ve just refreshed at leadership’s request. I’ve heard there are some significant technical challenges to achieving this. However, I’d anticipate that in 20-years that the economics of this will be as attractive as our current, proposed license extension – even with billions of capital investment.
Large Reactor versus SMR Economics | One economic perspective that I have seen multiple times is that the large reactors will be more cost effective than the SMR’s. My preliminary analysis of the AP1000 versus multiple SMR technologies confirms this from an LCOE perspective, especially when using dual-AP1000 projects (our internal guideline is that we don’t want to build one of any nuclear technology, always at least 2 co-located units). At the present time, I would estimate AP1000 LCOE’s to be 10%-20% lower than that of a few co-located SMR’s.
Increasing SMR Cost Competitiveness | There are multiple factors that could enable SMRs to approach cost parity with large reactors over the next 20+ years. One factor is development of a substantial orderbook to enable rapid advancement toward anticipated Nth Of A Kind (NOAK) project costs. Key enablers to achieve this include:
• Developing pricing leverage over the supply chain
• Effective documentation and transfer of construction lessons learned to drive down construction costs
• A focus on identifying and developing projects with multiple co-located units to achieve site and operational cost efficiencies.
New Nuclear Cost Discovery | My current view is that we are still in the “cost-discovery” stage for all SMR’s from both a First Of A Kind (FOAK) and NOAK perspective. We have received preliminary cost estimates from several SMR OEMs over the past 30 months, in addition to others who have not shared any costs to date. A telling fact is that where we’ve received multiple cost updates, the estimated cost metric has always increased. In one case, the updated OCC increased by roughly 40% over a 12-month timeframe. This drives my expectation that we’ll continue to see progressively higher FOAK project costs across all SMR technologies.
The conceptual pathway to the target NOAK cost is a learning curve applied to the FOAK costs. I’ve seen a rough estimate of 88% from a DOE study. My current thinking is that two learning curves should be applied to each project. A technology learning curve tracks cost efficiency associated with the prior quantity of projects / powerblocks completed while a site learning curve should be applied to capture the efficiencies associated with co-locating multiple SMRs on one site.
My rationale for believing that the SMRs are still in a NOAK cost discovery phase is the inability of OEMs to articulate a specific strategy to progress down the learning curve from the FOAK project. OEMs have been ambiguous on contracting strategy for large components. In addition, plans for using modular construction appear to be in a trial and error phase.
This is great insight. Thank you for sharing it.
I love the article, as I always do when you publish, but...
[NITPICK] The first paragraph in your discussion of CT gas plant prices seems to be off by a factor of 1000. Either you meant to list cost per KW of capacity, or you left three 0s off each cost number, or I am very confused. [/NITPICK]
Thanks for flagging this. I will fix it. Thanks for reading, Jeff!
this article was the most interesting that I've read in quite some time.
Thank you!
Thanks for the deep dive. I noticed that Maryland and Washington DC saw huge increases in their industrial sector price for juice this June compared to last June- https://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/epm_table_grapher.php?t=epmt_5_06_a
Any new turbine tech on the horizon that could alter all this?
Not sure honestly. Jacob Williams noted there might be the potential to uprate existing plants by 5 to 10 percent.
We also covered on the Energy Realities with David Blackmon, Tammy Nemeth and Irina Slav - great Job
Thanks, Stu! Looking forward to seeing it!
Very timely piece. We are currently seeing the $2,000+/kW CCGT costs with added concern of uncertainty if the turbines will actually be delivered on-schedule (2030ish). I've heard a new CT will likely be commissioning with a spare turbine, given the new turbine is a year+ late.
Another aspect to this may be new generation resource alignment with projected load forecasts. I've seen 2 source confirming the flat nature of emergent data center load. A presentation on our current data center load indicated just a +/- 3% variance from the average load. In addition, a series of projected future load shapes confirmed a flattening of the load curve.
Very interesting, Ted!
But but batteries will save us! (sarcasm)