PV plant built on nuke site as renewables surpass nuclear

tva

At 1MW, it isn’t the largest solar power project in the nation, or even the state. But the 3,000 solar panels on bend of a river near the Tennessee/Virginia tell a story which is playing out across the United States, and the world.

Next to the solar plant, which was recently put online by Birdseye Renewable Energy and United Renewable Energy, towers the concrete ruins of a nuclear power plant which began construction in 1978. However, work on the Phipps Bend Nuclear Power Plant was stopped by the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) three years later.

The new solar plant will now sell power to local utility Holston Electric through a TVA program.

Citing contemporary documents, local press concluded that the Phipps Bend Nuclear Power plant was the victim of declining power demand due to aluminum plants shutting down in the South, but globally the tide of nuclear was turning.

And while citizen pressure to abandon nuclear power was rising in the wake of the Three Mile Island incident, cost overruns and declining growth in electricity demand rates were more damning factors, and utilities abandoned around 100 nuclear power plants in mid-construction.

jan fuels

The timing of the completion of the solar plant at the Phipps Bend site comes as renewable energy is showing the first signs of surpassing nuclear power in the United States. During March and April, all renewable energy sources together generated more electricity than nuclear power in the nation for the first time since 1984.

This is in part due to record hydro output in the Western United States, and more prominently due to seasonal patterns which cause both wind and hydro output to peak during spring months.

But it is also due to significant changes in the nation’s electricity mix.

Wind and solar have made up the majority of new generation, as measured by capacity, to come online during the last few years, and combined met more than 10% of U.S. electricity demand for the first time in March.

However, this has yet to be borne out over a full year, as during 2016 wind and solar met a combined total of 7.6% of electric demand, and all renewables together met 15% of demand.

As this is happening, the nation’s aging fleet of nuclear power plants is finding itself unable to compete in electric grids dominated by low-cost gas and wind.

A notable exception is the case of the Diablo Canyon plant in California, which utility PG&E has scheduled for retirement citing its inability to meet the flexibility needs of a grid with high and increasing renewable energy penetration.

And aside from active nuclear programs in nations including China and India, globally nuclear power is on the decline.

This is largely due to its inability to compete on cost with wind, solar and natural gas, which can cost half as much (or less) per unit of energy delivered.

Comments

5 responses to “PV plant built on nuke site as renewables surpass nuclear”

  1. Mark Roest Avatar
    Mark Roest

    Now what could we do with those half-finished nuke plants that were never contaminated? I mean with the building itself?

    1. André Balsa Avatar
      André Balsa

      Nothing. Nuclear power plants are just massive reinforced concrete buildings in remote areas (far from urban populations) that are expensive to dismantle even when they have never been subjected to radioactive contamination.
      One such example is the completed but never fueled nuclear power plant in Bataan, in the Philippines. It cost Philippines taxpayers $2.3 billion to build and was never used, and now the Philippines government is trying to turn it into a tourist attraction, for lack of any other option…

      1. Joe Avatar
        Joe

        …the kiddies can feel all warm and ‘glowy’ after a day out to The Nu Clear Theme Park.

  2. Eclectic Eel Avatar
    Eclectic Eel

    It’s a sad indictment on governments that they don’t require companies to clean up the mess they make. Nuclear power plants – working or otherwise, mines -including coal are very expensive to rehabilitate and are rarely done properly. Easier to go broke and leave the taxpayer to fix up the mess.

    1. Joe Avatar
      Joe

      …and we’ve still got some loonies in The LNP here in Oz banging on about the need for Nu Clear energy being part of our ‘baseload’ energy mix. What is it that they don’t get or should we ask who is / are their sponsor/s. We know The MCA are sponsoring the calls for CLEEEEEEEN Coal but who is the pusher behind Nu Clear ?

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