World now has five times more PV than nuclear power
www.pv-magazine.com
Authors of the World Nuclear Industry Status Report 2024 the world had 408 operational reactors producing 367 GW in the middle of the year, which is significantly less than installed capacity predictions for solar by the end of the year and five time less the world's cumulative PV capacity, which is now approaching 2 TW.

“But even in the only country that is massively building, China, nuclear development is comparatively marginal. In 2023, China started up one new nuclear reactor, that is plus 1 GW, and more than 200 GW of solar alone. Solar generated 40% more power than nuclear and all non-hydro renewables—mainly wind, solar, and biomass—generated four times as much as nuclear.”
The report also highlights how nuclear power is being challenged not only by the strong growth of solar and wind, but also by battery storage, whose costs are projected to decline below those of coal-fired and nuclear power plants by around 2025 in China. “Solar plus storage is already significantly lower than nuclear power in most markets today, as well as highly competitive with other low-emissions sources of electricity that are commercially available today,” it also notes.
The authors also cite data from investment bank Lazard revealing that solar-plus-storage can already be cheaper than gas peaking and new nuclear. “The competitive cost and large-scale availability of variable renewable energy sources combined with firming options—especially storage—could well turn out to be the game-changer of energy policy in the years to come,” they further explain.

  • dgmib@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    2 months ago

    Such an incredibly misleading article.

    1 GW of nuclear capacity generates several times more electricity than 1 GW of PV capacity.

    Nuclear power plants run at almost full capacity pretty much 24/7/365. With the occasional shutdown every few years for maintenance and to replace the fuel rods.

    PVs only generate electricity during the day, and only hit their maximum capacity under ideal conditions. The average output of PVs is 15-25% of their capacity.

    Globally we generate more electricity from nuclear than we do from all PVs together.

    At the typical sizes we’re building them you need dozens of PV farms to match the energy output of a single nuclear reactor.

    • eleitl@lemm.eeEnglish
      0·
      2 months ago

      My capacity factor is something like 11%. Need to recompute it, using latest data.

    • frezik@midwest.socialEnglish
      0·
      2 months ago

      Five times more PVs at a 20% capacity factor means it evens out.

      The vast majority of those PV installations were in the last 7 years or so. We also built more manufacturing capability during that time. Meaning PV installations are being rolled out on an exponential curve, not a linear one.

      • dgmib@lemmy.worldEnglish
        0·
        2 months ago

        It’s not an exponential curve. It’s slower than that.

        It’s more than linear; we are adding more capacity each year than the year before. But added capacity per year as a percentage of the previous years total is a decreasing.

        If it was exponential the growth would be a straight(ish) line when plotted on a logarithmic scale… it’s not. On a log scale the line inflects.

        • frezik@midwest.socialEnglish
          0·
          2 months ago

          It’s exponential.

          https://www.livemint.com/industry/energy/the-exponential-growth-of-solar-power-will-change-the-world-11724312451921.html

          To call solar power’s rise exponential is not hyperbole, but a statement of fact. Installed solar capacity doubles roughly every three years, and so grows ten-fold each decade. Such sustained growth is seldom seen in anything that matters. That makes it hard for people to get their heads round what is going on. When it was a tenth of its current size ten years ago, solar power was still seen as marginal even by experts who knew how fast it had grown. The next ten-fold increase will be equivalent to multiplying the world’s entire fleet of nuclear reactors by eight in less than the time it typically takes to build just a single one of them.