Nuclear power cannot load follow

[Nicodeamus]

There is a widespread belief that nuclear reactors cannot load follow. Nuclear power plants not only can load follow, in Europe it is a utility requirement. The European Utility Rules(EUR) for nuclear power plants are summarized in Table 1.

Most modern designs exceed these requirements by a comfortable margin. For example, the Westinghouse AP1000 claims to be able to maintain a ramp rate of 5% per minute over a 15 to 100% load range. Such ramp rates easily handle all normal diurnal variations in demand. Consider the CAISO duck, Figure 1. Even with wind/solar making the net demand pattern far worse than the underlying demand, the required ramp rate in the critical 5:30 PM to 7:30 PM period is about 0.5%/minute.

Nuclear power cannot load follow

There is a widespread belief that nuclear reactors cannot load follow.

jackdevanney.substack.com

 

[Azure 12]

Okay, now I can sleep easy at night