https://www.lazard.com/perspective/levelized-cost-of-energy-...
For Hinkley Point C, another EPR we have the following, a guaranteed strike price of $140/MWh.
EDF has negotiated a guaranteed fixed price – a "strike price" – for electricity from Hinkley Point C of £92.50/MWh (in 2012 prices),[25][83] which will be adjusted (linked to inflation – £106/MWh by 2021[77]) during the construction period and over the subsequent 35 years tariff period. The base strike price could fall to £89.50/MWh if a new plant at Sizewell is also approved.[25][83] High consumer prices for energy will hit the poorest consumers hardest according to the Public Accounts Committee.[86]
In July 2016, the National Audit Office estimated that due to falling energy costs, the additional cost to consumers of 'future top-up payments under the proposed HPC CfD had increased from £6.1 billion in October 2013, when the strike price was agreed, to £29.7 billion'.[87][88] In July 2017, this estimate rose to £50 billion, or 'more than eight times the 2013 estimate'.[9]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hinkley_Point_C_nuclear_power_...
There in lies the issue, the total cost for newly built solar and wind is lower than the OPEX of existing plants.
On a yearly basis these are the average wholesale prices in Finland:
2020 - €28,02 /MWh
2019 - €44,04 /MWh
2018 - €46,80 /MWh
2017 - €33,19 /MWh
2016 - €32,45 /MWh
2015 - €29,66 /MWh
From that we can see is that the average price during the years was about equal to the OPEX we've seen from several sources. Other years you might make some back compared to OPEX.
https://www.nordpoolgroup.com/services/power-market-data-ser...
2020: $0,024 per kWh.
2019: $0,045 per kWh.
2018: $0,050 per kWh.
Nuclear are $0.13 - $0.204 per kWh to build. Therefore, even with these fluctuating prices you would need to make back the average loss of the year during a few short spurts, not looking likely that.
Also there is no way OL3 actually costs that much to build. Lets say it runs at 90% of max output on average it gets you ~14 000 000 MWh of electricity per year and with 60 year planned lifetime that comes to 840 000 000MWh of electricity produced.
With your numbers (the low end $0.13 per kWh) it would come to ~100 billion euros building costs which is roughly an order of magnitude more then reality (somewhere between 5.4 to 12 billion to be paid by TVO once all the lawsuits are settled)
At the end of the day with operational and decommissioning costs the overall lifetime costs will go up obviously but I doubt in the tune of over 1 billion per year to reach your estimate costs.
Also getting the profitability number of OL3 is really difficult due to TVO not actually selling any electricity directly to the public/pool but instead at cost to the investors of each reactor. Some of it going directly to Fortum or Helen who just sell it to whoever but some of it goes to the big paper companies who use it to run their factories.
TVO is a "mankala-periaate" company which I can't really find a good english explanation of but basically it is a company that sells all of its product to its owners at cost allowing multiple players in the field to share a single supplier while stills staying in control of the supply chain.
EDF has negotiated a guaranteed fixed price – a "strike price" – for electricity from Hinkley Point C of £92.50/MWh (in 2012 prices),[25][83] which will be adjusted (linked to inflation – £106/MWh by 2021[77]) during the construction period and over the subsequent 35 years tariff period. The base strike price could fall to £89.50/MWh if a new plant at Sizewell is also approved.[25][83] High consumer prices for energy will hit the poorest consumers hardest according to the Public Accounts Committee.[86]
In July 2016, the National Audit Office estimated that due to falling energy costs, the additional cost to consumers of 'future top-up payments under the proposed HPC CfD had increased from £6.1 billion in October 2013, when the strike price was agreed, to £29.7 billion'.[87][88] In July 2017, this estimate rose to £50 billion, or 'more than eight times the 2013 estimate'.[9]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hinkley_Point_C_nuclear_power_...
Also the current price for the plant is 5.7 billion euros (in the last "official" statement from TVO). It might go up to 7 to 8 billion after the lawsuits etc. Basically the plant was built at fixed cost contract with the builders (Areva and Siemens) taking a huge hit but that is not TVOs problem.
The biggest investors in OL3 are paper companies more interested in some guaranteed max price than paying the least by getting as much of their electricity from their own production (the nuclear plants by TVO, their own hydro, etc). Basically they want to be able to say 1 year in advance that paper/paperboard will cost X without taking a huge hit when fulfilling their contracts due to electricity price jumping up. If they happen to find cheaper electricity from somewhere else then it is just a happy accident and more profit for them.
Basically OL3 got built as the investors were so happy with the previous 2 reactors at the site so I would think they know how to do it in a profitable way.
We are however also talking about two very different kind of prices. My numbers are what the customer is paying, which can be seen either on the website by the electric company or sites dedicated to it (https://www.eon.se/el/elpriser/aktuella and https://elen.nu/dagens-spotpris/se4-malmo/#). What you are describing is the price on the energy market Nord Pool, like those that can be read at (https://www.energimarknadsbyran.se/el/dina-avtal-och-kostnad...).
In reality, a significant fraction of the cost comes from interest. Sure, the 1-month LIBOR rates may be 0.1% nowadays, but construction started in 2005. The 10-year treasury rate in 2005 was closer to 5%. Nobody would be willing to lend money for the construction of a plant like this for anything less.
(Of course the current price is a bit of an anomaly.)
Demand from gas in Europe remains the almost the same, but supply isn't.
- Do not fill storage assuming lower prices in autumn.
- Intentionally delay certification of a pipeline from one of your main suppliers.
- Act very surprised when the aforementioned supplier does nothing to stop spot prices explosion due to the external circumstances and even fans the flames a bit.
- Make questionable remarks which accelerate the rise of gas prices even further.
- Demand (sic!) from the supplier additional gas not covered by existing contracts, even though it's clearly not in his interest.
I wonder why does the EU has gas supply issues?
The pipeline is not certified because it breaks existing legislation. It is up to pipeline developers/owners to fix this issue.
So if this does not look to like an intentional delay, then I don't know what to say.
Nord Stream 2 AG is a subsidiary of state-owned Gazprom. They probably think that if they put enough political pressure, they could negotiate an exception.
Assuming a fixed interest rate of 5%, construction costs including interest is about $16 billion = €14 billion. Assuming an availability of 95% (maybe unrealistic for a brand new reactor) it will generate 13TWh/year. Assuming an electricity cost of €100/MWh (higher than usual but lower than current extreme prices) and a marginal cost of €26/MWh, the income/year is €0.99 billion. From this you have to deduct the interest of the loan of about €0.70 billion. So for the first year you have €0.29 billion in profit that you can use to amortize the loan.
So when the plant becomes profitable is highly dependent on what future interest rates are and how high future electricity prices will be. While current interest rates have been very low for the past few years, it may be very hard to get an investor to lend you money for a nuclear plant for only 5%. A discount rate of 7% or even 9% is often used for many commercial projects. Using those rates Olkiluoto 3 will never generate any return (barring insane electricity prices).
Neither solar nor wind works during these cold winter days when power usage is at its highest. There’s nowhere to build new hydro. Coal is being banned.
Note that due to the fixed-price nature of the original supply contract, the total cost of the plant was "only" €5.7B ($6.4B) to the owner/operator (TVO).
The $10B-$11B is the estimated cost to the plant supplier (Areva NP/Framatome), i.e. they made a huge loss.
Finnish source of numbers: https://www.kauppalehti.fi/uutiset/olkiluoto-3-alkaa-tuottaa... (paywall)