Study: Do nuclear power and coal play a role as base load power plants?

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On the whole, renewable energies provide a reliable supply of electricity, but sometimes not. Their share of the load fluctuated between just under eleven and more than 137 percent in 2024.

This scares many people. Don't we still need power plants that supply a certain base load around the clock? Now that there are no more nuclear reactors on the grid, can we still afford to shut down the remaining coal-fired power plants? A study by the "Energy Systems of the Future" initiative, which is backed by Acatech, Leopoldina and the Academies' Union, investigated this question.

Options for a secure power supply

Base load power plants are just one of several options for balancing our electricity grid. Alternatives are batteries or quick-response peak-load power plants. While batteries are more suitable for short-term fluctuations, chemical energy sources such as hydrogen will probably be needed for longer periods of darkness. There are still many unanswered questions –, such as where the necessary electrolysers and hydrogen power plants will come from. One thing is clear: the conversion will cost a lot of money.

But the same applies to base load power plants. Coal, nuclear fission, nuclear fusion, geothermal energy and biomass are ruled out for various reasons: too harmful to the climate, too expensive, too utopian, too little availability. The study has identified (natural) gas and steam power plants as the most plausible option. They are more efficient than pure gas-fired power plants, but cannot be ramped up and down as quickly. Despite their high efficiency, they already produce more expensive electricity than wind or solar parks. And since Germany wants to be climate-neutral by 2045, the CO₂ produced would have to be captured and stored. This so-called CCS process is expensive, untested, politically controversial and questionable from an energy perspective.

Base-load power plants also need storage

What's more, base load power plants also need something like a storage facility – when there is too much electricity in the grid. This is already quite often the case today. If they are shut down at every electricity peak, they are no longer base load power plants by definition. "Due to their cost structure, base load power plants are not well suited to being kept in reserve," the study states. "Due to their high investment costs, they have to be in operation almost continuously in order to be profitable."

If, on the other hand, the base-load power plants are left running and the renewables are regulated when needed instead, a cheaper source of electricity has been replaced by a more expensive one. It therefore makes the most sense to use excess capacity to produce hydrogen or other chemical energy carriers. However, – see above – the infrastructure for this is lacking. So even baseload power plants do not change the fact that we need to expand electricity grids and storage facilities.

Coexist yes, cost advantages no

The conclusion of the study: In an energy system characterized by renewables, base load power plants could "coexist" with wind power and photovoltaics. The overall economic costs would be "only slightly influenced" by base-load power plants until 2045. However, an expansion of base-load power plants with purely market-based financing currently appears "unrealistic". And there are "no clear economic cost benefits" for state subsidies.

That sounds somewhat arbitrary. But there are certainly differences in the details: "Base-load power plants could reduce the need for electricity imports and imports of pure hydrogen from Europe to Germany," the study states. And that is not an insignificant argument.

This article was first published on t3n.de .

(mho)