No, no, no. No coal plants, no nuclear plants, no LNG ports. That’s the gist of the public’s attitude toward new power generation. Which leaves us what? Renewables and energy efficiency. Sadly, that won’t be enough—electricity usage in the U.S. is projected to grow more than twice as fast as committed resources over the next 10 years.
Lucky for us, the generation fleet we have right now is doing a super job of keeping us out of the dark and cold, and if we continue to be lucky, more plants will come on line. The top 20 coal, nuclear and combined cycle plants are in peak form, running full tilt and with the latest technological advancements, getting more efficient and cleaner every day, according to Tom Hewson, principal at Energy Ventures Analysis, an Arlington, Va.-based firm that specializes in energy and environmental market analysis and forecasting. Hewson directs the firm’s environmental studies and provides analysis for our Operating Performance Rankings each year. With Hewson, we get good, realistic analysis instead of wishful thinking. Read on for his thoughts on nuclear, coal and natural gas combined cycle generators in the U.S.
Nuclear: A small but powerful community From year to year, there’s not much change in the top 20 nuclear plants ranked by generation (see Table 1). To be a member of this exclusive club, basically a plant needs 2,000 MW of capacity and multiple units. It’s the timing of scheduled outages and refueling that makes the difference in rankings.
PERFORMANCE RANKINGS continued on 22
Table 1: Top 20 Nuclear Plants Ranked by Generation (2006)
State Ariz. Texas S.C. Texas Ill. Ill. N.J. Pa. Ill. Pa. N.C. Calif. Tenn. Ga. Ala. Pa. S.C. Conn. Mich. Ariz.
Of Top 20 Total 66 Reporting Total
Source: Energy Ventures Analysis (DOE-EIA 906 data; EPA CEMS data)
Rank 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20
Operator Pinnacle West NRG Duke Energy TXU Exelon Exelon PSEG Exelon Exelon Exelon Duke Energy Pacific Gas & Electric TVA Southern Company TVA PPL Corporation Duke Power Dominion AEP Entergy
Plant Name
Palo Verde
South Texas
Oconee
Comanche Peak
Braidwood
Byron
Salem
Limerick
LaSalle County
Peach Bottom
McGuire
Diablo Canyon
Sequoyah
Vogtle
Browns Ferry
Susquehanna
Catawba
Millstone
Donald C. Cook
Arkansas Nuclear One
2006 Capacity
MW
3,744
2,536
2,538
2,300
2,530
2,590
2,302
2,300
2,187
2,212
2,200
2,181
2,264
2,297
2,236
2,329
2,258
2,059
2,125
1,842
47,029
99,827
2006 Generation MWh
24,012,231
21,368,269 19,919,098 19,896,009 19,570,534 19,491,771 19,348,146 19,197,184 19,107,811 18,932,677 18,391,827 18,390,995 18,000,679 17,947,153 17,871,474 17,805,432 16,894,178 16,589,446 15,684,918 15,232,577
373,652,409 787,218,636
2006 Capacity Factor %
73.22% 96.19% 89.59% 98.75% 88.30% 85.91% 95.95% 95.30% 99.74% 97.71% 95.43% 96.26% 90.76% 89.19% 91.24% 87.27% 85.41% 91.98% 84.26% 94.40% 47.46%
References:
Archives