European & US Residential Prices vs Grid mix composition (Nuclear and Intermittent) 2019

As shown in “A real System cost Landscape”, power prices for different markets varies due to different grid mix distributions, among other parameters. Professor Samuel Furfari from Universite de Libre Bruexelles have designed the following graphs. WattWatch have updated the European numbers with 2019 data and added all US states in two separate graphs.

Starting with the Nuclear data. There seems to be a correlation in European prices. Based on earlier built nuclear, with new projects ongoing in France, Finland, and the UK. It will be interesting to see how this plays out in the broader picture. With Poland, Estonia and perhaps the Netherlands exploring the nuclear path, also interesting to follow.

For the US the simplest comment is to say that there is no correlation. Deeper analysis can follow.

When it comes to Intermittency and its correlation to rates, slopes look very different. For Europe we recognize those with high ambitions, Denmark, Germany, and Spain.

For the US we see a different slope.  Kansas, Iowa, and Oklahoma still haver competitive prices with higher and higher Intermittency.

One explanation to this could be that most of this added power is exported out of the state to be consumed somewhere else. Then the intermittence must be handled elsewhere so any balancing cost would be taken by another market.
There is much more analysis to be done here, but as mentioned before, we leave this until some party finds an interest in such an analysis.

Next step in WattWatch Narratives is the “800 B€ Offshore Wind bet.”