offbyone on Nostr: Aaargh batteries! Another fast moving target. A domestic install cost is solidly in ...

Aaargh batteries! Another fast moving target.

A domestic install cost is solidly in the $1000/kWhr range, but factory cell cost is now hitting $100/kWhr this year.

I'll run with $500/kWhr.

Generating capacity first.

For solar to match the annual output of our reference 1GW plant (ignoring time of generation for now) needs around 5 GW of install. (I'm basing that off my own rooftop install's performance over the last 5 years.) That 5GW of cells will yield around the 7000 GWhr of electricity over the course of a year, plus or minus a percentage for weather, location etc etc.

So $5B for generating capacity. On to dispatch.

Look, I'm going to run with the conventional wisdom here. When sizing a battery for overnight dispatch a solid working estimate is for storage that can support 4 hours of peak delivery. In our case that leaves us at 4 GWhrs.

(I'm juicing the numbers in favour of nuclear here. Recall that its availability factor was 80% of peak, so arguably I should go with a like for like of 3.2 GWhrs. Not going to though).

At $500 per kWhr that runs us $2B.

Grand total of $7B. 35% of our nuclear option.

Circling back to the start, the stand up build cost of our nuclear plant was $20B. But achievable real world best case is closer to $9B, which is now within a reasonable distance (not close exactly, that would be doing violence to the language, but they can at least see each other and wave).

To me, there are 2, say, clear tie breakers.

The first is that nuclear isn't being built in Australia, while renewables plus battery is. So we're comparing desktop possibility with realised constructed actual along with actually having the engineer/procure/construct skillset in place right now. That's a huge advantage.

The other is that renewables are built out, over time, but each individual unit has the potential at least to be generating right away.. A nuclear plant doesn't generate until it's done. Once the first solar panel or wind turbine is up and running, though, it's generating. So there is a year 1 benefit from renewables that you don't see with nuclear at all.

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2024/nov/04/no-bigger-rent-seeking-parasite-than-nuclear-industry-matt-kean-tells-former-coalition-colleagues-in-heated-debate

#auspol #nuclear #rentseeking

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