Projected Costs of Generating Electricity - OECD Nuclear Energy ...

equipped with emission control devices for nitrous and sulphur oxides, dust and particulate matters; one
of the plants considered in Germany includes a carbon dioxide capture device. The investment costs
reported for those plants include the costs of pollution control equipment.
Fifteen member countries and one non-member country included one or more gas-fired power plants
in their responses. All but one of the 23 gas-fired plants for which cost information was provided, are combined
cycle gas turbine (CCGT) plants. The unit capacities of the gas-fired power plants considered vary
between 100 and 1 600 MWe (see Table 2.5 for details on the gas-fired power plants considered in the
study). Three of the plants included in the study use liquefied natural gas (LNG) as fuel.
Eleven member countries and one non-member country provided cost information on one or more
nuclear power plants (NPPs). The NPPs considered (see Table 2.6 for details) are all water reactors with
unit capacities ranging from 450 to 1 600 MWe. Most countries provided cost data for once-through fuel
cycle; France, Japan and the Netherlands provided data for the closed cycle option.
Wind power plant data were included in the responses of ten member countries. The 19 wind plants
considered are mostly onshore but data were provided for a few offshore units by three countries. Most
wind power plants included in the study are multiple unit sites with the number of units varying from 10
or less to 100. The average capacity factors reported for wind power plants vary from 17% to 43%, the
higher values referring to offshore sites. Table 2.7 provides details on the wind plants included in the
study.
Hydro power plant data were provided by six member countries and two non-member countries. The
ten plants for which data were reported include mainly small hydro power plants, three larger plants
(capacity >10 MWe) and one pumped storage facility. Detailed information on those plants is provided in
Table 2.8.
Data on six solar power plants were provided by four member countries. The plants considered include
one thermal parabolic plant and five solar PV plants (see Table 2.7). The capacities of the plants included
in the study are small, below 5 MWe except for the thermal plant in the United States. The average capacity
factors of the plants considered are around 10% except in the United States where capacity factors of
24% for solar PV and 15% for solar thermal parabolic are reported.
Nine member countries provided data on twenty-three CHP plants fuelled with coal, gas and various
combustible renewable (see Table 2.9 for details). The questionnaire asked for reporting data on CHP
plants under a specific category, irrespective of the fuel and technology used, because the generation cost
estimation method differs for this type of plants (see Chapter 5). Most of the plants included in the study
produce heat for district heating of either residential or commercial buildings; some are used for industrial
heat supply. The electrical capacity of the units varies from very small (less than 1 MWe) to medium
(up to 500 MWe).
Other types of power plants (see Table 2.10 for details) for which cost data were provided include: gasfired
fuel cells (three plants); combustible renewable (two plants); waste incineration (two plants); oil (one
plant); geothermal (one plant); and landfill gas (one plant). Only the fuel cell plants were classified in the
distributed generation category.
Methodology and common assumptions
The constant-money levelised lifetime cost method was adopted to calculate the generation cost
estimates presented in this report. This methodology, which has been used in all the reports in the series,
is described in Appendix 5. While this approach is considered a relevant tool for comparing alternative
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