Economic Value of Nuclear Power in Future Energy Systems : Required Subsidy in Various Scenarios Regarding Future Renewable Generation and Electricity Demand

As a zero-carbon technology, nuclear power is potentially useful to realize climatepolicyobjectives. It may however economically not be efficient to have such a typeof power plant in future electricity markets which are dominated by high shares ofrenewable generation. In this paper, we test this hypothesis for various scenariosregarding the future electricity system, using a partial equilibrium model representingthe Dutch electricity market. We find that adding a nuclear power plant to a marketwith high shares of renewables requires less subsidies than adding similar amounts ofproduction by wind or solar power because of the respective impacts on the captureprices. Adding a nuclear power plant appears also to be more efficient to realize azero-carbon system than using electrolysis and hydrogen plants for flexibility