In 2016, the average total generating cost for nuclear energy was $33.93 per MWh (megawatt-hour). Total generating costs include capital, fuel and operating costs – all the costs necessary to produce electricity from a nuclear power plant. Cost information for the U.S. nuclear fleet is collected by the Electric Utility Cost Group (EUCG) with prior years converted to 2016 dollars for accurate historical comparisons.
Approximately 80 percent of the electricity generated from nuclear power in the U.S. comes from plants with multiple reactors. The economies of scale allow plant operators to spread costs more over multi-unit sites, resulting in a lower total generating cost. In 2016, the average total generating cost at multi-unit plants was $31.63 per MWh compared to $41.39 per MWh for single-unit plants.2 This separation is driven by operations and capital costs as there is not a meaningful difference in fuel costs.
The 2016 total generating costs were 6 percent lower than in 2015 and more than 15 percent below the 2012 costs. Prior to the 2012 peak, nuclear generating costs had increased steadily over the previous decade, for various reasons. Between 2002 and 2016, 1 EUCG data are collected to perform benchmarking comparisons by companies that operate nuclear plants. The total generating cost does not include considerations for risk management or returns on investment that would be key factors in business decisions affecting a particular station. 2 The data provided are averages across the operating fleet. Individual plants may vary notably from the average due to factors such as geographic location, local labor costs and the timing of refueling outages. © 2017 Nuclear Energy Institute 3 fuel costs increased by 16 percent, capital expenditures by nearly 70 percent, and operating costs by more than 8 percent (in 2016 dollars per megawatt-hour). Total generating costs have increased by more than 18 percent in the last 14 years.
NEI – August 2017.
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