Solar Versus Nukes

I think solar is more expensive than state and the cost of Vogtle is downplayed. But it give you a idea. 

The cost of wholesale electricity in NE today is $15 bucks per megawatts-hr. 

Who’sSmarter, Duke Energy or Georgia Power?

October 2, 2017 by Robert Hemphill Leave a Comment

The cost of utility scale PV plants has fallen dramatically over the last several years.  One analytical publication had data for H1 of 2016, indicating that utility scale solar plants cost from 1250 to 1350 per KW at that time. More recent reports tout the arrival of one dollar per watt ($1000 per KW) plants.  This would translate into five to six cents per KWh electricity, although the sun regime at the plant site can affect this number up or down. It seems likely that if Duke aggressively pursues a competitive third-party approach to their solar construction program, it should do even better than these numbers.  And they can use multiple suppliers to compete against each other for the key component, the solar panels.   A January 2015 Wikipedia article listed nine US and 48 non-US providers of this technology, and there are no doubt now many more, especially in China.

The Vogtle cost is unclear.  Most estimates have it at $25 billion, although some argue it could go as high as $29 billion.  The truth is that no one knows.  Georgia Power did originally try to cap the costs by signing a fixed price contract with Westinghouse, the reactor provider and constructor, and a subsidiary of Toshiba, but that has worked out badly, for all parties.

Cost to customers is perhaps the single most important variable in this analysis.  Since the capital cost is unknown for Vogtle, we have to use estimates.  Assuming that 25 billion is the final number, and using even very simple assumptions (30-year debt at 4.5%, mortgage amortization, a 50/50 debt to equity financial structure, 10% return on equity, and 85% capacity factor) then the cost to customers of the capital alone comes out at 12+ cents per kwh.  And nuclear plants have non-trivial operating costs which are generally acknowledged to add four to six cents per kwh to the cost of making electricity.  So the Vogtle electricity leaves the bus bar at north of sixteen cents per KWh.