Though fuel costs are low, other operations and maintenance costs are significant – particularly the cost of replacing life-limited vessel and blanket components. Reducing the cost of these key components by innovation in either design or manufacture, and by production learning will have the most effect in making fusion competitive. Without a breakthrough in capital costs, it may be difficult for early large fusion designs to be competitive, even with the benefits of a large programme of build and production learning.Ĭapital costs of fusion are high, with the core device costs – magnets, vessel and divertor and blanket – being more than 66% of direct costs and almost 50% of total costs. Some key technology and design integration issues for these power plants will still be outstanding and be addressed by parallel development projects.Įstimates of costs for fusion energy at this stage of development are “inevitably uncertain”, the report concludes. The report says the €20bn International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (Iter) project in France should demonstrate the feasibility of fusion and provide some useful engineering design signals by the middle of the 2030s for the fusion power plants that follow. It is essentially the long-term price at which the electricity produced by a power plant will have to be sold at for the investor to cover all their costs. LCOE captures both capital and operating costs that need to be covered. For a small fusion design, the energy cost of 75 units is in the region of £69- £99/MWh – a range that is comparable to 10 units of large fusion reactors and also the energy cost of LWR fission reactors. These two effects improve the fusion economics, decreasing the LCOE into the range £60 to £97/MWh. With an improved, large fusion design the construction cost decreases to £4,135/kWe and the capacity factor to 75%. The International Energy Agency has put the LCOE for advanced nuclear at $63/MWh (about £45/MWh). The reason for this is the combination of a relatively high construction cost (£5,887/kWe) and a low capacity factor (56%). It says fusion is uncompetitive today with other low-carbon options available in the UK – including wind and light-water nuclear fission reactors. The £60-£70/MWh cost for fusion “provides the first target for nuclear fusion to be economically competitive”, the report concludes. Capital costs for the development of a new generation of nuclear fusion reactors are high at around £100/MWh, but a substantial programme of standard build could bring them down to a viable target of £60-£70/MWh, a report published by engineering group Assystem says.Īccording to the report, which examines the potential for fusion in the UK, the government has estimated the 2040 levelised costs of electricity (LCOE) for the UK for standalone offshore wind, onshore wind and large-scale solar of £40/MWh, £44/MWh and £33/MWh respectively.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |