Abstract
Worldwide electricity markets are changing due to decreasing prices of fossil fuels and addition of renewable generators (wind and solar). Large-scale renewables deployment collapses prices at times of high wind or solar input that limits their deployment and impacts nuclear plant revenue. These changes have reduced the demand for baseload electricity but increased the demand for dispatchable electricity—a market currently served in the United States primarily by natural gas turbines. At the same time, there is a longer-term need for dispatchable low-carbon electricity production—a replacement for fossil fuel electricity production. The changes may be challenging the economics of nuclear power today but may create new opportunities for existing and new build nuclear energy systems in the future. Heat storage coupled to electrical power plant whether gas, fissile fuel, coal, or nuclear may enable baseload reactor operation with variable electricity to the grid—heat into storage when low electricity prices and production of added electricity using stored heat when prices are high.
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Zohuri, B. (2018). Energy Storage for Peak Power and Increased Revenue. In: Hybrid Energy Systems. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-70721-1_6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-70721-1_6
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