The Direct Costs of Energy - Hydro&Nuclear Best, Solar Still Lagging

Wrapping up our discussion on the actual costs to produce electricity, we can determine a total actual life-cycle cost for coal, nuclear, solar and hydro needed to build and operate the number of each plants or arrays required to produce a trillion kWhrs over their life-span. Key assumptions and references are given in the three previous posts.

In 2011, a 750 MW coal fired power plant cost $2.5 billion, expected to operate at a capacity factor of 71% for the 8,766 hours each year over its 40-year life, producing 187 billion kWhrs, more or less.

750 MW x 1000 kW/MW x 0.71 x 8,766 hrs/yr x 40 yrs = 187 billion kWhrs

To produce one trillion kWhrs over their life span will require building about 5 (5.3) of them at a cost of about $13.4 billion. Fuel costs are about 2¢/kWhr @$40/ton of coal, O&M costs are about 0.6¢/kWhr and decommissioning costs are 0.21¢/kWhr. So to produce a trillion kWhrs from coal will cost: $13.3 billion + $20 billion + $6 billion + $2.1 billion = $41.4 billion or 4.1¢/kWhr.

Fuel costs are largest for natural gas and coal, small for nuclear and zero for the renewables. Long-term generating costs are highly dependent upon fuel costs, especially for natural gas.