How much does the nuclear cost? Economy of the nuclear in the electric power system - Technical Note, November 2022

This note aims at shedding a light on the different future debates on the contribution of nuclear to the competitiveness of the French electric power system, on the short, medium and long terms. It first proposes an overview of the methodological approach of notions of cost. Then, it analyses the different elements of determination of the cost of the existing nuclear in France (lifetime extension of the existing fleet, competitiveness, international comparison, LCOE sensitivity), and the different costs for the new nuclear (competitiveness of reactors of third generation, expected evolution of EPR construction costs, EPR2 costs, overview of production costs for other technologies such as SMR and fast breeders). It also addresses system costs and the competitiveness of nuclear within a complete production fleet (methods to take system costs into account across a nuclear plant, nuclear contribution to the electric mix competitiveness on the long term, synergies and complementarities between nuclear and renewable). It finally discusses how to expand this analysis scope beyond the electric power system (comparison of the nuclear environmental footprint with other energies, extrapolation for a whole cost). A summarised version is proposed