Evaluation of Non-electric Market Options for a Light-water Reactor in the Midwest. Light Water Reactor Sustainability program

Abstract

This report addresses new market opportunities for nuclear energy at a time when existing light-water reactors (LWRs) are experiencing diminishing revenues in the electricity market. This initial technical/economic assessment indicates LWR hybrid operations can increase the revenue of LWR power-generation stations.A hybrid system provides an offtake for energy produced by an LWR power-generation station when the price offered for committing electricity to the grid is lower than the cost of producing this electricity. A secondary user benefits by purchasing electrical power, steam, or thermal energy directly from the LWR site at a cost that is lower than it can be purchased from the grid at either the electricity transmission-customer level or the electricity distribution-customer level. At a minimum, this requires a tightly coupled connection to the power-generation operations of the nuclear plant. The LWR hybrid plant may then apportion energy between the industrial user and the electricity grid to optimize the revenue of the nuclear plant, depending on specific day-ahead electricity-grid capacity commitments and reserve capacity agreement requirements. For this market arrangement to work, the non-grid user is sold electricity without paying grid service fees (i.e., being considered a house load). This mode of energy sharing may require approval of governing utility commissions, depending on whether the hybrid operations can affect grid supply and pricing, and in consideration of provisions for grid-capacity payments that may apply to a hybrid system.

Flexible Nuclear Energy for Clean Energy Systems

“…Similar to steam bypass operation, impact to the turbine assembly must be considered when defining maximum ramp rates and turndown that is possible without making additional modifications to the plant secondary. Significant research is currently being conducted to identify synergistic approaches to couple nuclear plant output with thermal loads (Boardman et al 2019;Epiney et al 2019;Frick, Talbot, et al 2019).…”

“…The principle objective of the project awarded to the tri-utility consortium of Energy Harbor, APS, and Xcel Energy is to carry out the planning, design, installation, testing, demonstration, and evaluation of integrated energy technologies connected to an LWR power plant, with a focus on a scalable hydrogen generation pilot plant. The project will install a low-temperature electrolysis hydrogen generation pilot plant unit at the Davis-Besse Nuclear Power Station in Ohio (Boardman et al 2019). The financial security of the Davis-Besse plant has recently been challenged by falling natural gas and renewable energy prices.…”

“…Hence, it is uneconomic to operate such facilities at low capacity factors. This may require that plants producing hydrogen operate more than 80% of the time (Boardman et al 2019). The high-temperature electrolysis plant is embedded into a system that includes nuclear and renewable generators and heat storage.…”

“…As shown in Figure 32, emissions-free hydrogen production using nuclear technology can be costcompetitive with other zero-CO2 production methods and has the potential to be cost competitive with steam methane reforming of low-cost natural gas, which is the cheapest pathway to making hydrogen today (Allen et al 1986;BloombergNEF 2020;Boardman et al 2019;Gogan and Ingersoll 2018;Hydrogen Council 2020;IEA 2019b;NREL 2019b;M. Ruth et al 2017;Yan 2017).…”

“…Nuclear energy has particular attributes well-suited to the production of hydrogen. Electricity and heat production at very high capacity factors enables large-scale production of relatively low-cost, zero-CO2 hydrogen (Boardman et al 2019). 12 High power density also enables a relatively tiny environmental footprint.…”