Dutton’s “always on” nuclear power is about as reliable as wind and solar – during a renewables drought
One of Peter Dutton’s key selling points for nuclear power - it's “always on” reliable generation of electricity - has been put to the test in a new analysis.
The analysis found that a fleet of modern nuclear plants is, on balance, about as reliable as a fleet of wind and solar farms – if those wind and solar farms were in the midst of a very bad renewable energy drought.
The analysis compared outages experienced by solar and wind during renewables droughts – known as “dunkelflaute” – to outages in nuclear energy generators.
The analysis found that during its “worst week” in any month, nuclear experienced a reduction of 8% to 70% of average output, and 44% to 77% in peak months – comparable to the “worst week” experienced by renewable energy.
A caveat, he said, was France and its 55 reactors where operators practice ramping to match output with demand.
Nuclear outages can occur either on a schedule where maintenance needs to be carried out, or may be “forced” through a technical fault, an emergency or an external factor that knocks one or several reactors offline.