Comment by leonidasrup
6 days ago
Civilian nuclear plants can be easily regulated between 50% - 100% of maximal output, with power gradients of up to 2% / min. (Submarine nuclear reactors are designed for even faster gradients). In France, because nuclear power plants are the dominating source of electricity, nuclear power plants have to ramp up and down the output on daily basis.
https://snetp.eu/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/SNETP-Factsheet-...
When possible you want to run nuclear power plant at 100%, because there are almost no savings in operating costs (because nuclear fuel is so cheap) in comparison to a nuclear power plant running at 50%.
The current Chinese electricity strategy is to minimize the costs of electricity, get as much electricity from hydro, wind, solar as cheaply possible and fill the rest with cheap coal power. China currently doesn't use batteries for renewables backup in any significant amount (in comparison the size of the Chinese electricity grid).
China currently doesn't have access to cheap natural gas, in contrast to US. The amount of electricity produced from natural gas is very small in China.
https://ourworldindata.org/profile/energy/china
Nuclear power in China is still very small, in comparison with coal power.
Will China build more and more renewables? Yes, but only if the costs of the whole electricity mix will stay low. They will not overbuild renewables. They will not build very large amounts of battery storage, if coal power will be cheaper.
China's coal use alone is more than all energy sources in the USA combined. Something like 70% of all energy, then oil, then about 10% renewable. USA is also near 90% fossil fuel but morally natural gas and oil, coal on the way out while China still opening gigawatts of plants yearly.