Bloomberg: Unreliables Cheaper Than Fossil for AU.

[David B. Benson]

I doubt solar PV as as much as a 20% availability factor in Japan, but let's use that anyway. 0.2x5 GW = 1 GW, annualized. Yes, that will cut down a little on Japan's LNG imports. How many GW worth of NPPs in Japan are sitting idle at the moment?

[sod]

Apr 20, 2013 12:27:52 GMT 9.5 David B. Benson said:

I doubt solar PV as as much as a 20% availability factor in Japan, but let's use that anyway. 0.2x5 GW = 1 GW, annualized. Yes, that will cut down a little on Japan's LNG imports. How many GW worth of NPPs in Japan are sitting idle at the moment?

your approach includes multiple errors.

First off, this is about the ANUAL ADDITION of solar power. even with moderate increase rates, 10 years from now we are talking about replacing 10-15 reactors/coal plants.

you also forget the cut into peak demand. This will ease the strain on the system (Oi reactors were put back online, only because of the fear of summer blackouts..)

As a last point, these solar power will cut into prime time cost of power. This will make it hard for coal, to be competitive.

[anonposter]

They cut into peak demand on some days while doing nothing on others which means that you still need the generators to supply the peak on the days when the shiny things are doing f*** all.

We've gone over that before.

[edireland]

Apr 20, 2013 16:25:11 GMT 9.5 @sod said:

you also forget the cut into peak demand. This will ease the strain on the system (Oi reactors were put back online, only because of the fear of summer blackouts..)

As a last point, these solar power will cut into prime time cost of power. This will make it hard for coal, to be competitive.

But that Melbourne study you provided to support your posistion suggested that a 2000MWe solar park would only provide ~800MWe of peak demand reduction.
And only after it's power production was deoptimised in order to optimise it for the peak-shaving role.

So you are effectively payign $6-7000/kW for that power, nuclear is definitely cheaper by all reasonable estimates.

[David B. Benson]

New Battery Design Could Help Solar and Wind Power the Grid
www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/04/130424140603.htm
This might well scale up to form useful units for the daily cycle. OF course, the flatter the daily net load curve the better NPPs look.

[quokka]

Capacity payments for coal and gas plants in Germany now seen to be inevitable due to reduced load factor.

www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-04-23/power-plant-capacity-payments-inevitable-in-germany-ubs-says.html

No doubt adding further to the cost of already expensive electricity.