Talk:Cost of electricity by source

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Requested move 28 November 2019

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: no consensus to move the page to the proposed title at this time, per the discussion below. Dekimasuよ! 08:47, 14 December 2019 (UTC)

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Cost of electricity by source → Levelized cost of electricity – "Cost of electricity by source" is not the common name for this topic; "levelized cost of electricity" is. As of this writing, a Google Scholar search for '"cost of electricity by source" -wikipedia' returns 34 results, while one for '"levelized cost of electricity" -wikipedia' returns 12,400. For Google Web, the results are 20,000 and 204,000, respectively. Of the five characteristics of a good Wikipedia article title, "levelized cost of electricity" is superior on the first two and even on the next three. Sampenrose (talk) 16:43, 28 November 2019 (UTC) —Relisting. – bradv🍁 04:57, 9 December 2019 (UTC)

• Oppose – Levelized cost is discussed in the article, but is not the main subject of the article. Dicklyon (talk) 05:56, 29 November 2019 (UTC)

But this is the primary article for LCOE, and most of the article is about LCOEs for various technologies. GliderMaven (talk) 02:27, 30 November 2019 (UTC)

• Comment - I think we should have a separate article for LCOE, discussing how it is calculated, what are its limitations, and so on. This article should stay as a general cost comparison between different energy sources. --Ita140188 (talk) 08:24, 29 November 2019 (UTC)

The thing is, that article would have nothing in it; it would be a stub forever. GliderMaven (talk) 02:27, 30 November 2019 (UTC)

I don't think so, and anyway this is not a reason to not have an article about an obviously notable and encyclopedic subject. --Ita140188 (talk) 01:25, 1 December 2019 (UTC)

The only content I can think of would already be in this article. Unless you can specify what would be in it, I think the presumption has to be that it would remain extremely short, just a definition, or the new article would steal virtually all of the material from here, in which case, this article becomes very short. GliderMaven (talk) 02:45, 1 December 2019 (UTC)

@GliderMaven: The fact that you cannot think of other content is not a reason to not have an article. There is no requirement that a specific user knows how to expand a new article. The article just needs to be notable and encyclopedic, and LCOE is obviously both. --Ita140188 (talk) 11:06, 1 December 2019 (UTC)

@Ita140188: Absolutely incorrect. The relevant policy is: Wikipedia:Notability#Whether_to_create_standalone_pages. GliderMaven (talk) 00:09, 6 December 2019 (UTC)

I don't think any of this points apply to LCOE, which is a relevant topic that has extensive coverage, and there's potentially a lot to say about it (history, calculation, drawbacks..). I repeat, the fact that you don't know how to expand it, does not mean it cannot be an article by its own. --Ita140188 (talk) 00:25, 6 December 2019 (UTC)

The fact that you have been unable to provide any new material means you don't have enough material to make a new article. GliderMaven (talk) 17:37, 11 December 2019 (UTC)

There is enough material for a new article already. The new article is 10kb. --Ita140188 (talk) 00:48, 13 December 2019 (UTC)

You added no new material. Content duplication is not a new article. You haven't been able to provide any new material, nor did you successfully split the information out of this one-we still need it here. GliderMaven (talk) 01:33, 13 December 2019 (UTC)

Levelized cost of energy has already enough material to be an article by itself. This article (cost of electricity by source) can be further rewritten in light of the creation of the main article on LCOE. I will start doing this today. --Ita140188 (talk) 01:41, 13 December 2019 (UTC)

@Dicklyon can you address any of the rationales I laid out directly? I tried to follow the Wikipedia guidelines for proposing a move. Separately (and echoing GliderMaven), when I started editing this page more than two years ago it was in bad shape. There is a reason all of the recent updates from prominent sources refer to LCOE: no one as prominent as BNEF, Lazard, IRENA, the World Bank, etc. is using cost by source. They're all using LCOE. Finally, @Ita140188 if we did split off a separate LCOE article I could use help knowing the correct protocol to follow. Right now the phrase redirects to this one as the result of a years-ago editing decision. Sampenrose (talk) 04:03, 30 November 2019 (UTC)

• Support - Levelized cost of electricity seems to be the more common term by academia, government organizations and on internet in general with the meaning "Cost of electricity by source". As mentioned, many of the references used in this article use the term levelized cost of electricity, so a move seems like the right thing to do. Ws1920 (talk) 13:23, 30 November 2019 (UTC)

I think there is a difference between the LCOE and a comparison of LCOEs of different sources. It's the same difference between Gross domestic product and List of countries by GDP. I am ok with changing the title of this article to LCOE by source or something like that, but it remains a comparison article. I think we still need an article specifically about LCOE. --Ita140188 (talk) 01:25, 1 December 2019 (UTC)

We already have an article specifically about LCOE, this is that article. The point of Wikipedia's renaming process is that the contents of the article don't depend on the precise name. We're not actually changing the scope of the article, only how you find it. GliderMaven (talk) 02:49, 1 December 2019 (UTC)

Another factor is that the cost by source parts, currently section 2 more-or-less, are simply not as good. The references are old and with a few exceptions less prominent than the new LCOE references. Per the 34 to 12,000 ratio on Google Scholar, that seems to be because the professional conversation has moved on. It also feels like a bit of a jumble: the "Marginal" subsection is two sentences that sound like the belong on the talk page, or broken out into an "Alternatives" section. There is a value to simply having a coherent, up-to-date page. We can do that for LCOE; no one has yet done it for cost by source. Sampenrose (talk) 03:33, 1 December 2019 (UTC)

• Support The current name is clearer, but 'LCOE' is better in accordance with WP:TITLE and doing that helps sort out the WP:LEAD issues we currently have. In terms of content the article already has to cover how LCOE varies with generation modality as well as location, and already all of the studies we're quoting use LCOE. Wikipedia articles aren't about the title anyway, so the content is unaffected. GliderMaven (talk) 02:45, 1 December 2019 (UTC)

  It looks to me like LCOE is one of several ways to compare costs and that the article discusses others. A separate article on LCOE might be a better idea. Dicklyon (talk) 05:14, 1 December 2019 (UTC)

Point of order, the discussion is only about renaming the article; this isn't about rescoping it or changing the text other than that. GliderMaven (talk) 22:06, 1 December 2019 (UTC)

• Oppose per my arguments above. I think we should have a new dedicated article about LCOE. LCOE by itself is obviously notable as others have pointed out by number of search results. But as I said above, there is a difference between LCOE and a comparison of LCOEs of different sources. It's the same difference between Gross domestic product and List of countries by GDP. We can discuss about renaming this article LCOE by source though. --Ita140188 (talk) 11:02, 1 December 2019 (UTC)

Having a separate article actually violates WP:Notability, there's a specific subsection about that, that wouldn't be satisfied. GliderMaven (talk) 00:09, 6 December 2019 (UTC)

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The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Ita140188 / GliderMaven

Original heading: "Ita140188 seems to be trying to destroy the article." ~ ToBeFree (talk) 22:51, 12 January 2020 (UTC)

Collapsing: This discussion is too heated and personal to lead to any productive result. If an editor disagrees about the existence of an article, WP:AFD is the correct venue to gain consensus for deletion. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 22:51, 12 January 2020 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
The article, as it stood, defined methods for measuring how much electricity costs, and then lists representative examples for different situations. Ita140188 seems to be trying to effectively destroy the article. By moving the methods of calculating costs completely out of sight and away from the examples, the article becomes so much harder for readers. Don't readers deserve to have an article that covers electricity costs? Because Ita140188 apparently doesn't think so? GliderMaven (talk) 16:01, 13 December 2019 (UTC) I actually put a lot of work on making this article better, while being continuously reverted by you. For example, your revert reintroduced this sentence: [..] Thermally lethargic technologies like coal and solid-fuel nuclear are physically incapable of fast ramping. However, many designs of Generation 4 molten fuel nuclear reactors will be capable of fast ramping because (A) the neutron poison xenon-135 can be removed from the reactor while it runs leaving no need to compensate for xenon-135 concentrations [10] and (B) the large negative thermal and void coefficients of reactivity automatically reduce or increase fission output as the molten fuel heats or cools, respectively.[11] in the middle of a discussion about how to calculate LCOE. Does it make sense? Do you think an out of context detailed discussion of nuclear physics makes the article better? --Ita140188 (talk) 02:25, 14 December 2019 (UTC) No, it doesn't. GliderMaven (talk) 22:37, 12 January 2020 (UTC) If you don't even know why fast ramping, expensive infrastructure is incapable of delivering low cost, then you should stop right away. Literally no country has ever, or will ever, run only nuclear power. It's propaganda by the nuclear industry to push nuclear reactors. Nuclear reactors are virtually never voluntarily run demand following. Yes, they can physical ramp, yes, they can physically do it, and on occasion they may even do it, but no it doesn't matter, because they're too expesnive. A nuclear reactor running at half load is making electricity that is twice as expensive than one that is run flat out. GliderMaven (talk) 22:37, 12 January 2020 (UTC) From experience all your edits only harm the article. You seem to be trying to make a career out of damaging this article. Go away. Don't come back. GliderMaven (talk) 22:37, 12 January 2020 (UTC) Actually I removed that sentence, you are the one that reintroduced it. --Ita140188 (talk) 22:41, 12 January 2020 (UTC)

Improve Introduction and Structure

LCOE, Avoided Cost, and Marginal Cost are not "Cost Factors". They are ways of addressing the problem of comparing different relations between the timing of expenditure and product. So I would follow the introduction with a new section 1 which combines the second paragraph of the current introduction with the current 1.3, 1.4, and 1.5

Also in the current introduction, the first paragraph could be improved in various ways - some trivial and some less so.

-on the trivial end, "ways of electricity generation" sounds ungrammatical or at least contrary to common English usage. Better would be either "methods of electricity generation" or "ways of generating electricity" or "ways to generate electricity".

-since discounting of advanced or delayed costs is very relevant it might be advisable to add "which may occur at significantly different times relative to when the power is used" at the end of that first sentence

-I would move the third sentence to a second paragraph since there is a lot more to be said on that score

-Although a discount rate is included in the various ways of getting a per unit cost it is not actually a component of the cost itself, so I would omit it from the list of things that "It" includes

-Also, the initial capital is not included (as a total) in the unit cost of power so I would replace the "It" there with "The total cost" and leave the discussion of unit costs to the proposed second paragraph.

In fact I guess I'll just make the proposed edits now and see how long they survive.

alQpr (talk) 00:48, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

Can we remove the EIA 1st image?

Hey all, I updated the EIA tables (both of them) to add the new 2020 EIA AEO LCOE data. In the beginning of the EIA section, we have an image which is just a visual representation of the table that immediately follows. I updated the image with the 2020 data as well. But I don't think the image really adds anything to the section since its just a repeat of the table below.

Is anyone opposed to me removing the image?

--Keanwood (talk) 01:17, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

Ok for me. It would be helpful to have a graphic representation of the numbers (without unnecessarily repeating the numbers) but that figure is of poor quality. --Ita140188 (talk) 01:40, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

Dubious cost of nuclear energy

The first graph of Global studies states the cost of nuclear to be $164/MWh. In France, ARENH forces EDF to sell nuclear power to other electricity companies at €42/MWh. An independent study suggested a new price of €48 to reflect the real cost where EDF itself said it costs €52. How can Lazard be so off, even in its 129-198 USD range? Should we add a warning to users? Uzinagaz (talk) 11:31, 16 March 2021 (UTC)

I think it's the difference between new build nuclear and old build nuclear. The French fleet was built decades ago, and inflation and asset depreciation has reduced the cost of the electricity in today's prices. A similar thing happens with coal plants. GliderMaven (talk) 14:29, 16 March 2021 (UTC)

China EPR price tag was 7.5 billion USD, roughly 4,540 USD/kW of installed capacity (Wind is currently at roughly 1,000 USD/kW but has a much lower load factor and lifespan). With a 80% load factor over 60 years, it will produce 694,267,200 MWh of electricity, bringing the cost to 10.8 USD/MWh. Add that to the ARENH revisited price (that already includes deconstruction + spent fuel storage + running costs + maintenance + fuel cost), it's 70 USD/MWh. Granted, it does not include the cost of financing but it's a far stretch from 160. What am I missing? Can we add the "disputed section" tag while we understand this? Uzinagaz (talk) 20:10, 16 March 2021 (UTC)

No, that's not how Wikipedia works. Editors don't modify an article based on their own research, this is called original research and is not permitted here. Rather, a reliable source has to be cited in order to support the information before it can go in the article. Further down the road comes how to present different sources with a Wikipedia:Neutral point of view. Lklundin (talk) 20:22, 16 March 2021 (UTC)

You are right to point out I did not make my initial suggestion clear. I am suggesting to remove (or adjust with more information) the figures because:

1. The source publication is not peer reviewed (it's written in the source document "source: lazard estimates" - which doesn't give the calculation hypothesis to verify. How is that more reliable than my demonstration?)

2. A back-of-the-envelope calculation allows to question the validity of the publication's figures

3. The section does not state the notes on the source document that give off essential information to correctly interpret the figures

I'll add to my suggestion to also remove the BNEF statement that is simply plain wrong. You cannot compare intermittent energy costs with controllable energy costs without adding at least storage costs (or controllable energy costs). Using their own figures present there, solar or PV comes out more expensive than anything else. Uzinagaz (talk) 21:15, 16 March 2021 (UTC)

As the editor who has been updating this page with the Lazard data as it comes out, I'm sympathetic to Uzinagaz's argument that the Lazard estimate is not a good guess at the LCOE of future nuclear SMRs. The EIA guesses they'll be around $70/MWh in 2026: https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/aeo/pdf/electricity_generation.pdf which roughly matches what I've seen elsewhere. But the LCOE studies that this section is based on existing data from new deployments, and we simply have many fewer of those. (Should we count Vogtle's obscene cost overruns?) Nuclear poses challenges to anyone seeking apples-to-apples comparisons. You project a very long lifetime for nuclear plants, which is legitimate, but you don't appear to include a non-0 discount rate, which is IMHO not legit, or a cost of fuel disposal, which is AFAICT impossible: could be negative (fuel is reprocessed) or gigantic (Hanford). Note that the challenges of getting reasonable estimates are not confined to nuclear: IRENA, which unlike BNEF or Lazard is in the business of promoting wind and solar and therefore "biased", has implausibly high estimates for their costs—the opposite of what you would expect from their "bias". Your criticism of BNEF is unjust: they are quite aware of the wide range of costs that can be included or left out, and they do their best. You only cite the omissions whose inclusion would favor nuclear. NuScale and Oklo are working to deliver SMRs at, IIRC, ~$4,000/kw installed; once they are doing that we should have several up to date LCOE values for nuclear under $100. Until then, the best we can do as stewards of this page is to **find good data sources and add them**. I particularly encourage you to put country-specific nuclear data in country sections. In short: cost estimates are complicated, especially for nuclear. As Wiki editors, let's work together to gather and cite the best ones we can find. As a citizen, I like you am rooting for a nuclear renaissance, but that shouldn't affect what I put on this page. Sampenrose (talk) 02:33, 17 March 2021 (UTC)

In all economic models of power generation there are two critical factors that can make energy very expensive or very cheap, both on paper and in reality: Discount rate and cost of financing. Incidentally, in most nuclear power economic models (including LAZARD), for nuclear these parameters are always somehow set to the worst-case scenario. Discount rate is set to a very high value (8-12%), basically meaning that the nuclear power plant loses economic value after 10-20 years, which is utterly stupid if look at nuclear power plants providing the same amount of energy after 60 years of operations. The second factor, cost of financing, is more realistic - cost of private financing of nuclear power plant is very expensive and takes up to 60% of its price. Just to repeat: up to 60% of some nuclear power plants is the loan interest. In countries where power infrastructure is publicly funded, this cost if obviously negligible, as you have noticed already in case of China. All that is explained pretty well in these two articles:

• Cost of nuclear for dummies, and future generations
• The Hinkley Point C case: is nuclear energy expensive?
• VALUATION KEYSTONE KOPS: LAZARD, EVERCORE& TSLA
• Q&A: The social cost of carbon: How important is the discount rate?

I suppose the first one could be used as a WP:RS, but I'm also pretty sure this criticism of LAZARD methodology is also present in literature. Also, nothing prevents you from adding ARENH or any other actual nuclear electricity pricing data to the article if they can be referred to WP:RS and they are not used to criticise LAZARD directly ("look, these prices are lower!") but any thinking reader can compare these two and draw their own conclusions. Cloud200 (talk) 22:20, 16 March 2021 (UTC)