Projected costs of generating electricity from power stations for commissioning in the period 1995-2000

The study reviews the projected electricity generation costs for the base load power generation options expected to be available in the medium term, using an agreed common economic methodology. Cost projections were obtained for nuclear and fossil fuelled plants that could in principle be commissioned in the mid-1990s, or shortly thereafter, although not all countries plan to commission plants at that time. The major changes in expectations compared with earlier studies, apart from those associated with changed perceptions of fossil fuel prices, include significantly lower nuclear investment costs for the United States, associated with an improved design and the expectation of achieving shorter construction periods than projected in the 1985 study, and generally lower nuclear fuel costs. Some countries project higher operation and maintenance costs for either coal-fired or nuclear plant or both. In the case of coal-fired plants these may be associated with the extra costs of operating desulphurisation equipment. The most marked change in nuclear operating and maintenance costs has taken place in the United States, where these costs are now expected to be twice as large as the projected nuclear fuel costs. There remain major differences in investment cost expectations between countries. The reasons for these differences have been examined in previous studies. They arise from differences in factor costs, regulatory approach, design and siting, and exchange rates which do not adequately reflect the differences in the capital investment costs between countries. In brief, most OECD countries continue to expect nuclear power to have a lower levelised generating cost than coal-fired generation when using their own technical and economic assumptions