Levelized Energy Cost Comparison
Using publicly available information, and some educated guesses, I have come up with this comparison of the levelized energy costs of four very different power sources:
- The rooftop solar array on our house
- Waldpolenz Solar Park, a 40 megawatt photovoltaic power plant in Germany
- Portlands Energy Centre, a newly constructed, combined cycle natural gas turbine just east of downtown Toronto
- Darlington Nuclear Power Station, the most efficient nuclear power plant in Ontario, a hour’s drive east of Toronto
| Our rooftop solar array | Waldpolenz Solar Park (photovoltaics, Germany) |
Portlands Energy Center (natural gas turbine, Toronto) | Darlington (nuclear power station, Toronto) | ||
| Nameplate capacity (megawatts) |
0.00315 MW | 40 MW | 550 MW | 3,610 MW | Notes |
| Capacity factor | 13.6% | 11.5% | 40% | 75% | Notes |
| Total annual output (megawatt hours) |
3.75 MWh | 40,296 MWh | 1,927,200 MWh | 23,717,700 MWh | Notes |
| Cost to build | $27,000 | $195,000,000 | $730,000,000 | $14,400,000,000 | Notes |
| Number of employees | 0 | 0.1 | 25 | 1,800 | Notes |
| Average annual salary of employees | $0 | $60,000 | $75,000 | $100,000 | Notes |
| Annual salary costs | $0 | $6,000 | $1,875,000 | $180,000,000 | Notes |
| Annual maintenance and upkeep costs | $100 | $100,000 | $1,000,000 | $100,000,000 | Notes |
| Fuel costs to generate one megawatt hour | $0 | $0 | $45 | $5 | Notes |
| Annual fuel costs | $0 | $0 | $86,724,000 | $118,588,500 | Notes |
| Total annual operating costs | $100 | $106,000 | $89,599,000 | $398,588,500 | Notes |
| Total operating costs for 20 years | $2,000 | $2,120,000 | $1,791,980,000 | $7,971,770,000 | Notes |
| Total costs to build and operate for 20 years | $29,000 | $197,120,000 | $2,521,980,000 | $22,371,770,000 | Notes |
| Total power output in 20 years (megawatt hours) | 75.06 MWh | 805,920 MWh | 38,544,000 MWh | 474,354,000 MWh | Notes |
| Levelized cost per kilowatt hour for 20 years | 39¢ | 24¢ | 7¢ | 5¢ | Notes |
| Levelized cost per kilowatt hour for 40 years | 21¢ | 12¢ | 6¢ | 3¢ | Notes |
| Our rooftop solar array | Waldpolenz Solar Park (photovoltaics, Germany) |
Portlands Energy Center (natural gas turbine, Toronto) | Darlington (nuclear power station, Toronto) |
- You can download a spreadsheet with this information, in either OpenOffice format or Microsoft Excel format.
Comments and References
Our rooftop solar array
Micro solar installations are expensive, but prices are dropping all the time, 20% between 2009 and 2010. Plus, zero greenhouse gas emissions are priceless. Micro installations can eliminate the need for a grid connection too
Waldpolenz Solar Park
Large scale solar is slightly less expensive than micro installations. It is highly sensitive to initial build costs, so increases in cell efficiency and decreases in cell costs are the key to making large scale installations more viable.
There is a lot of general information about Waldpolenz on the internet, including an official press release.
Portlands Energy Center
For now, natural gas turbines are a cost effective option for city-level generation. Portlands provides 25% of central Toronto’s electricity (though many question whether we needed a new natural gas plant in the city). Natural gas produces greenhouse gas emissions, but less than coal. It is highly sensitive to the price of fuel and if fuel costs rise and solar costs continue to drop, natural gas could be on par with solar within 30 years.
The official Portlands Energy Center website has a lot of information, including a FAQ and a fact sheet.
The US department of energy has posted a detailed analysis of the operations of a natural gas plant that is very similar to the Portlands plant. Also online, there is a US Army technical manual about natural gas plants. It provides some general information about the fueling requirements.
Some general information about natural gas prices is available on the Canadian Gas Association website.
Darlington
Nuclear comes with phenomenal production capacity, and phenomenal upfront build costs and ongoing refurbishment costs. It has minimal fuel costs, compared to fossil fuels, but can’t compete with renewables of course. Darlington provides 20% of Ontario’s electricity. Zero greenhouse gas emissions are a plus, but enormous environmental risks in the event of an accident, and radioactive waste that lasts for 10,000 years, are two very big downsides.
The Ontario Power Authority website has copies of some quarterly reports about the operation of Darlington. The US Department of Energy has a website with a lot of information about uranium, including one general comment about the amount of energy you can get from one ton (approximately 40 million kilowatt hours).