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Sadly LCOE is a very bad metric when looking at intermittent and non dispatchable generation sources in a power grid. Especially so as they approach a meaningfu

Sadly LCOE is a very bad metric when looking at intermittent and non dispatchable generation sources in a power grid. Especially so as they approach a meaningful fraction of total generation. The market goal of power generation after all is not to produce as much kWh as possible but to satisfy demand at a specific time. System level LCOE which take dispatch into account are a better way of looking at power generation costs. Here is a pretty good paper on the topic, albeit a bit older so some parameters might have changed slightly. https://research.google/pubs/pub46289/ https://research.google/pubs/pub46289/

pfdietz 4y ago
System level numbers are dependent on the details of the system. LCOE has the advantage that it's independent of the system. Of course everyone understands that in specific cases one has to look at details local in time and space. Ah, and from that abstract: "DOSCOE shows that to cost-effectively remove the last 10-20% of fossil fuels requires a moderate price on carbon and either low-cost nuclear power or carbon capture and sequestration. Alternatively, a hypothetical zero-carbon source needs to have a net present cost less than $2200/kW to displace existing fossil-fuel plants." A combined cycle power plant burning hydrogen satisfies that last requirement. Studies that purport to show that nuclear is needed for the last 10-20% do so by ignoring hydrogen (and other e-fuels), which slam that door in nuclear's face.