How much do different power plants cost?
cortex_disconnect asked:
What is the average price range, per kilowatt-hr, of all the different types of power plants, during the last year or two?
What is the average price range, per kilowatt-hr, of all the different types of power plants, during the last year or two?
Coal
Oil
Gas
Nuclear
Hydro
Wind
Solar
Take into account subsidies, capacity factor, etc. so that it’s a fair comparison.
Total price is no good if you don’t know the typical usable power output.
This is about the cost required to produce a kW-hr of electrical energy from each different type of power plant, and nothing more. Solar is 5 times as expensive as wind, for instance. Please provide references.
well, it depends on where u are building them ,
but for the most common plants like fossil fuesl based thermal plants , burning gas or oil , u are talking about 600-700 M $ for a 1000 megawatt plant ( which is large)
for a nuclear power plant, u are talking about 1~1.5 Billion $ for 750-900 MWatt
for wind , it’s not commonly used over a large scale production but u are talking about 220~270 Mil $
Hydro , well when building a large dam it’s no ceiling , the chinese 3 giant dams ( which is the worlds record) are still under construction & they caused a crisis in construcion steel all over the world , i.e they consumed a large portion of the international production , rather than the demographic studies & env. impact studies …… for a dam it’s a damn
but u can reach 3~4 Bil. $ easy ( i’m talking about giant ones)
frankly i don’t know about solar , but u missed one , it’s geothermal plants.
i don’t know if u heard about them or not , they are not widely spread , they require geysers , or near volcaninc activities ( not so near), it’s common in scandenavia , UK & US
Hope that was helpful , it’s rough no. but i don’t think it’s possible to estimate a general case each require their own preleminary studies
These refer to typical generating plants in NA with the features noted and are “busbar” costs, i.e., the approximate costs to produce a kwh.
You are asking two different questions: one is the average Cost per KW of construction, the 2nd question is the average cost of producing a Kwh. I will give you some price ranges for Kwh costs for existing generating plants in NA that represent the fuel and capital costs combined as a cost of a Kwh.
Coal-500 Mw-1300 Mw plant with all required eviron features, appalachian coal, 70% + capacity factor, 3.0-4.0 US cents
Oil: 200-300 Mw plant(old) 7.5 cents (bunker)
Oil: Diesel (newer, slow speed) 8-9 cents
Gas: New, combined cycle, 300-500 Mw, 4.5 cents (Nat gas at $1.05)
Nuke: (existing) 650-1200 Mw, 85% Capacity factor, 3.0-3.5 cents.
hydro: Varies greatly. Large 50 year-old plants are running at about 2 cents. Small newer run-of-river plants are at 4.0 cents
Wind (heavy subsudies) about 5 cents (less if capacity factor is >30%)
solar: (residential with heavy subsudies) about 7 cents.