Coal fuel prices, sensitivity analysis

Figure A6. Coal fuel price sensitivity analysis.

Figure A16. Sensitivity analysis for coal fuel prices using Platt s data.

The base case results, using the DOE data, indicate that in the absence of externality costs, or renewable tax credits, pulverized coal and nuclear are the least cost alternatives at 4.5 and 5.3 cents/kWh, respectively. A complete sensitivity analysis on fuel, capital, capacity factor, and construction time shows that the results for coal and gas are much more sensitive to assumptions about fuel prices than they are to capital costs or construction times, while nuclear results are more sensitive to... 

The following three sections provide a more detailed sensitivity analysis, derived from GenSim. In the first section, production costs for various technologies are plotted against specific fuel prices. This type of analysis is useful for determining fuel price break-even costs, such as the coal price at which nuclear is cost competitive. The next section determines capital cost break-even points, such as at what capital costs nuclear becomes competitive with coal, gas, or wind. The third section discusses the results of a sensitivity analysis for nuclear plant construction time. All examples use the DOE s data set comparable analysis using the Platt s data set is included in Appendix A.l. 

Figure A6 illustrates a similar analysis for advanced coal technology. This analysis shows that fuel prices of (in /MBtu) 2.18,2.13, and 2.41, respectively, make coal competitive with nuclear, wind, and gas CC technologies. The default DOE coal price in GenSim is 1.29 /MBtu. As with the previous example, these results indicate that coal s competitiveness is very dependent on assumed fuel prices. These results are not very sensitive to changes in capital costs a 10% difference in capital costs changes these results by 0.26 /MBtu.

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