Global Nuclear Capacity Factor Continues Decline - now 76%

[kristopher]

Of course, that doesn't include plants that close for long periods of time. It is acceptable in nuclear accounting to simply ignore those failures.

Power Plant Performance - Load factors to end December 2011.
05/01/2012

The Fukushima accident dominated the nuclear industry during 2011, prompting safety re-evaluations and reviews of the lessons learned across the world, as well as the permanent closure of 12 reactors (eight in Germany and four in Japan) in the second quarter of 2011. The accident has also had a notable impact on nuclear electricity generation, which fell by more than 3% compared with 2010.

Data were available for 398 units (371.8 GW) with more than a year's operating experience on 31 December 2011, and they generated just over 2500 TWh of electricity during the year. In comparison, 407 units (379.5 GW) generated 2581.6 TWh of electricity in 2010. (Note that the 12 units closed in response to Fukushima generated an additional 15.2 TWh of electricity in 2011.)
A slight overall decrease in performance in 2011 is evident. Overall, the average annual load factor for all reactors fell from 77.0% at the end of 2010 to 76.0% in 2011. But the decline is magnified at the bottom end. When the reactors are grouped in quartiles, the lowest annual load factor in the top 25%, 50% and 75% changes little from 2010 to 2011 (91.8, 83.2 and 70.8 for 2011, respectively). But the lowest annual load factor in the top 90% in 2011, 37.6%, is a third lower than in 2010.

The fall in average annual load factor was the most prominent for BWR designs, dropping from 75.5% for 2010 to 67.7% for 2011. The BWR figure is affected most significantly by the operation of reactors in Japan, which is home to 30% of the BWRs listed in our main table. The average annual load factor for PWRs dropped less markedly from 81.1% in 2010 to 79.5%. However, it was a good year for RBMK and PHWR reactors, which improved from 60.3% to 80.6% and from 64.3% to 72.8%...

http://www.power-eng.com/news/2012/05/01/power-plant-performance-load-factors-to-end-december-2011.html

[PamW]

1. Dishonest accounting!

Of course this is dishonest accounting.

That capacity factor is counting all the nuclear power plants that are shutdown and dismantled.

It's a bit like counting all the airliners in the airliner boneyard in Arizona when it comes to calculating the airlines' "on-time" departure rate. Of course those airliners in the Arizona boneyard contribute a ZERO to the on-time departure rate because they aren't going anywhere.

If you want to know the capacity factor of the nuclear power plants that are actually operating; it's in the high 90 percentile.

PamW

[kristopher]

2. Seriously? You are saying that PEI is against nuclear power???

There is a complete explanation and list of reactors included proving your assertions wrong.

You are very, very, very odd.