Nuclear vs Solar

What should you do to increase energy supply?
Coffee and no breakfast.

What about decentralising energy production for resilience?

Solar Vs Nuclear

Large scale nuclear power is a dumb idea for New Zealand due to scale. Most normal nuclear power plants are about 1GW or higher. So, if you build a 1GW base load at one point in the network, you will have outflow capacity problems there.

You will want to put the plant in a major demand area, so you don't have to spend billions on lines from the plant. So you will need to build it in Huntley. At that point if you mess up, or have an earthquake it will be very painful for all New Zealanders.

Theoretically you could build three or four smaller stations, but do you want to be the test subjects for a new technology like that? And do you want it in your back yard? I don't.

But you could put some solar on houses and install some batteries in houses. The 1GW nuclear power plant would cost $NZ9 to 15 billion (will it go over budget?). You can install a 5kW array of solar panels and a 10kWh battery on half a million houses for the same price.

This would generate 2.5GW on solar peak, and store 5GWh for overnight. It will make less power in winter and more in summer than the nuclear system, about 50% more power overall.

But it can't fail all at one time in a disaster. If every fifth house had power in a wide spread disaster, it would be better for resilience. You can get a hot shower and charge your phone at your neighbours house in a disaster, provided they also have tank water.

The batteries can also be charged from the mains if it is not sunny in the winter, which can help prevent high spot power prices on peak load (dinner time), it helps balance the grid.

Also, the solar surplus can be used to charge electric vehicles. If you are going to install solar and batteries on half a million houses, you will also want to implement cellular connected smart chargers for cars, so that you can also use that to balance the grid by charging at solar peak, and decanting power form house batteries into cars at optimal times.

I don't imply regularly drawing power form cars, except in exceptional circumstances - disasters and adverse energy trading events - ultra high spot prices.

Another good thing about the solar and battery option is that you can have a gradual roll out. You don't have to wait 20 years and then have the thing turned on in one go (at which point you collapse the energy market).

If the solar thing turns out to be wrong, you can change direction after a few years having spent 15% of the budget. If you get 10 years into the power plant and stop, all that money was wasted for zero benefit.

These simple arguments should be enough to never consider large scale nuclear in New Zealand. It's different for other countries.

This plan will not work in countries that don’t have some other consistent generation base, like geothermal or hydro. Also, it works in places that are not freezing cold every day in winter.

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