What Are the Economic Challenges of Nuclear Power and LED Street Lighting?

[NUCENG]

I was curious about the limits of what might be done to the electrical load in the Florida example by reducing, say, lighting load by replacing existing lighting with LEDs. FL's total electric consumption rate is ~28GW per EIA. For the US at large, about 13% of the load is lighting. In FL electric use is above average due to air conditioning load, so I guess lighting is only 10% of FL electric consumption, or 2.8GW. LED lighting is roughly 10X more efficient than incandescent and 2X more efficient than florescent. Thus the FL load would fall as much as 2.5GW (all existing incand.) to 0.28GW and as little as 1.4GW (all existing florescent) to 1.4GW if every light was replaced with an LED. LED lighting costs about $3/W (and falling), so worst case the material cost is $4.2B. That's still considerably more expensive than a new 2GW gas plant, but considerably less than the cost of the proposed Levy county nuclear plant.

Just found some other information about lighting. Residential load is dominated by refrigeration, washers, dryers, cooking, water heaters, electrical heating, and air conditioning. Converting residential lighting loads to LEDs is only part of the total lighting story. The bulk of lighting loads is from municipal street lighting and similar loads. Typically these large loads have the highest price and are significant to utility bottom lines. First, can these lighting loads be replaced with LEDs? Second, if these loads are reduced significantly, won't that lead to higher prices for residential customers?

 

[mheslep]

I am sure you are aware that LED and flourescent lighting have already achieved some market penetration, so your numbers probably overstate the savings.

Flourescent yes, and I accounted for that in the calculation (only 2X improvement or 1.4GW). LED no, nothing significant yet.

I acknowledge that there are efficiency gains to be had and there is discussion in the EIS for Levy county of that potential (see discussion of no construction alternative). But even if your numbers are correct, you have only covered the generation of the nuclear plants for load growth(see certification of need for Levy county),

Yes, agreed.

but haven't covered the replacement power of the shutdown of the older coal plants to achieve Florida and EPA emission goals.

Which is a different issue and different costs. Levy nuclear's additional ~2GW does not cover this either.

Finally, even with efficiency savings, and the (supposedly) cheap alternative of natural gas, there will still be the issue of CO2 emmissions and Florida goals to consider.

Emissions from efficiency savings? How so?

 

[mheslep]

Okay, so the land purchase cossts go up by several orders of magnitude to build in an urban area. ...

Well, several multiples at least. In any case urban land in and around, say, Miami and Orlando will account for nothing close to Levy's $3B for transmission.

 

[mheslep]

Just found some other information about lighting. Residential load is dominated by refrigeration, washers, dryers, cooking, water heaters, electrical heating, and air conditioning.

Yes, as posted above lighting averages 13.5% of the load in the US, and I guess less in FL. I chose lighting just as an example of what might be done and at what cost.

Converting residential lighting loads to LEDs is only part of the total lighting story. The bulk of lighting loads is from municipal street lighting and similar loads. Typically these large loads have the highest price and are significant to utility bottom lines.

I didn't single out residential, but gamed out replacing all 2.5GW of existing lighting in the state of FL. Street lighting appears to be a good place to start. If one also counts the reduced chiller load due to lighting induced heat in buildings in the FL summer I expect the savings would be even greater.

First, can these lighting loads be replaced with LEDs?

A hand full of cities across the US have LED street light projects underway - LA, Seattle, Ann Arbor, Atlantic City, etc.

Second, if these loads are reduced significantly, won't that lead to higher prices for residential customers?

Eh? Are we not talking about an increasing load (or decreasing supply) situation in FL that is driving the need for a new 2GW nuclear plant? The new plant is due either to increasing load or retiring sources. I'm suggesting an alternative: decreased load through improved efficiency.

 

[gmax137]

... LED lighting costs about $3/W (and falling), so worst case the material cost is $4.2B. That's still considerably more expensive than a new 2GW gas plant, but considerably less than the cost of the proposed Levy county nuclear plant.

What's the lifetime of those 4.2 B$ LEDs?

 

[mheslep]

What's the lifetime of those 4.2 B$ LEDs?

50,000 hours, or 40X that of an incandescent bulb.
http://www.designrecycleinc.com/led%20comp%20chart.html

 

[mheslep]

50,000 hours, or 40X that of an incandescent bulb.
http://www.designrecycleinc.com/led%20comp%20chart.html

The WSJ had an article Saturday on LED replacement of street lighting. One draw back I missed above is that one doesn't get 50,000 hours of LED life if the street light is hit by lightning or destroyed by a hurricane, forcing full cost replacement, something about which the FL utilities are particularly aware.

On the other hand LED street lighting is taking off much faster than I knew, with considerable push back from utilities. Aside from the accident problem, the utilities don't want their night time, i.e. off peak production, load lowered. They want exactly the fleet they have, building no more, to pay day and night as much as possible. Street light customers, i.e. municipalities, want the lower bills.

 

[jim hardy]

the utilities don't want their night time, i.e. off peak production, load lowered...

there's some basis for this in real world.

electric generators are huge machines that don't lend themselves to stop-and-go operation like your car does... the electric company needs enough nighttime load to keep several generators online.. else all your generating eggs are in one basket and it's a setup for a widespread blackout.

that's the nature of huge machinery, it's not nimble.

expect decreased reliability as the nation's electric system is squeezed for economy.

 

[clancy688]

The WSJ had an article Saturday on LED replacement of street lighting. One draw back I missed above is that one doesn't get 50,000 hours of LED life if the street light is hit by lightning or destroyed by a hurricane, forcing full cost replacement, something about which the FL utilities are particularly aware.

Back where my parents live the local authorities experimented with LED street lighting a couple of years ago. Those new LED lights didn't last for longer than a month.
Drunks always tried to "kick them out" temporarily (which's possible with old-style lighting) and when they didn't succeed, they just tried harder. Wrecking the light in the process...

 

[mheslep]

there's some basis for this in real world.

electric generators are huge machines that don't lend themselves to stop-and-go operation like your car does... the electric company needs enough nighttime load to keep several generators online.. else all your generating eggs are in one basket and it's a setup for a widespread blackout.

that's the nature of huge machinery, it's not nimble.

expect decreased reliability as the nation's electric system is squeezed for economy.

Note that lowering the overnight load favors solar power, which does not require huge machines.

 

[mheslep]

The WSJ had an article Saturday on LED replacement of street lighting. One draw back I missed above is that one doesn't get 50,000 hours of LED life if the street light is hit by lightning or destroyed by a hurricane, forcing full cost replacement, something about which the FL utilities are particularly aware.

On the other hand LED street lighting is taking off much faster than I knew, with considerable push back from utilities. Aside from the accident problem, the utilities don't want their night time, i.e. off peak production, load lowered. They want exactly the fleet they have, building no more, to pay day and night as much as possible. Street light customers, i.e. municipalities, want the lower bills.

Edit:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204083204577078202836500244.html