atw - International Journal for Nuclear Power | 10.2020

atw Vol. 65 (2020) | Issue 10 ı October
Nuclear power plant units in operation [-]
500
Installed nuclear power plant capacity worldwide [gross, GW = 10 3 MW]
450
524
400
400
300
300
REPORT
200
100
200
100
0
1956 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000
2010 2015 2019
Year
| Fig. 2.
Development of the number of nuclear power plants in operations from 1956 to 2019.
0
1956 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000
2010 2015
Year
| Fig. 3.
Development of the gross nuclear power plant capacity in operation from 1956 to 2019.
2019
2,500
2,000
1,500
1,000
500
0
Looking at the structural impact of the incidents in Japan
and Fukushima on 11 March 2011, it can be ascertained
that, in the meantime, they do not have an effect on the
number of new construction project and plans worldwide,
with the exception of political reactions in Germany, Italy
and Switzerland.
The development of the number of the commercially
operated nuclear power plants worldwide, in addition to
the available gross nuclear power plant capacity is depicted
in Figure 2 and Figure 3 for the years 1956 to 2019 (1956:
year of commissioning the first commercial nuclear power
plant, Calder Hall 1, in Great Britain. The first nucleargenerated
electricity occurred on 20 December 1951 in the
US-American Experimental Breeder Reactor EBR-1.) Also
worth noting is the continued capacity increase (Figure 3)
in the 1980s, as the nuclear power plants, ordered due the
impact of the first oil crisis at the beginning and end of the
1970s, started operations with high capacities per plant
averaging 1,000 MWe. Worldwide and in Germany, the
commissioning of the nuclear power unit Biblis A in 1974
with 1,225 MWe gross represented an important milestone
in the development of high-capacity plants, which were
from the beginning designed also technically for a longer
operating period of several decades – previously, the pilot
plants were also built with the focus on technical feasibility
and practicability. Since about 1993, a developmental
stagnation can be observed with the number of nuclear
power plants and capacity and this is due, on the one hand
to the decommissioning of older, prototypical and no
longer profitable plants in the USA, Europe and the GUS
Electricity production in nuclear power plants [TWh = 10 9 kWh/a]
3,000
Unit capability factor [%]
1956 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000
2010 2015
Year
| Fig. 4.
Development of the nuclear electricity production and plant availability from 1956 to 2019.
100
80
60
40
20
0
2019
states and, on the other, the compensatory expansion of
capacities in the Asian region and capacity increases
of operating plants. Since the mid-1990s, remarkable
increases in capacity have been achieved. With further
optimised turbines alone, an increase in capacity of around
5 % can be gained without increasing the reactor capacity.
If a construction measure also makes increasing the
thermal reactor capacity possible, then the generating
capacity in countries such as Mexico, Sweden, the Slovak
Republic, the USA and Hungary that are already approved
and realised would increase by around 20 %. Until the
end of this decade, a cumulated capacity increase totalling
8,000 MW is estimated. This equates to the new construction
of about 6 large nuclear power units. In the USA alone,
capacity increases totalling approx. 10,000 MWe net have
been realised or approved, a further 700 MWe currently to
be realised until 2020 have been applied for.
With the 443 operating plants at the end of 2019, there
were 9 units less in operation than in the hitherto record
year 2018 with 452 nuclear power plants.
The nuclear power plants worldwide have achieved
a approx. 1 % higher result in 2019 compared to the
previous year in the net electricity generation with
approx. 2,657 billion (109) kWh (2,632 billion kWh,
provision details and calculations, cf. Table 1 and
Figure 4). In Japan, with the exception of 9 reactor units,
all other 24 plants were not connected to the grid for the
whole year. The previous best result of nuclear electricity
production accounted for 2,658 billion kWh in 2006. Good
operating results were reported from the power plants in
Belgium, China, Finland, Germany, Russia, Switzerland
and the USA.
The overall operational reliability of the plants is
underlined by the average mean availability for work of all
nuclear power plants worldwide (cf. Figure 4). Their
average had increased since the mid 1990s. The strong
decrease in availability at the beginning of the 1990s is due
to the large drop in the availability of plants in the East
European states and the GUS states, whose operating data
were included consistently in the statistics for the first
time. The long-term cessation of individual profitable
nuclear power plant, and the quasi whole nuclear power
park of Japan as of 2011, also influence the lower average
availability in the years 2006 to 2009. Since 2011 the
availability is slightly increasing with the commissioning
of nuclear power plants in lay-up operation.
The Top Ten nuclear power plants in power generation
(net) 2019 are: (1) Taishan-1, China, 11.952 TWh;
(2) Civaux-1, France, 11.608 TWh; (3) Peach Bottom-2,
USA, 11.534 TWh; (4) South Texas-1, USA, 11.515 TWh;
Report
Nuclear Power World Report 2019