We are often told that nuclear power provides reliable baseload and, unlike renewables, do not need backup. However, as the data shows1 this is not true.
Although I have covered this topic before (e.g. Nuclear Power: Keeping The Lights On??, Capacity Factors, Capacity Factor Learning Curve) this is updated data from 1970 (when load factors start to get reported and 2023). Note that a significant amount of data is not available since it was not reported to the IAEA – particularly for the first and last few years of the reactor operation.
The Load Factor is the amount of electricity that you could get in a particular year divided by the amount that is theoretically possible.
For example, in 2023 Sizewell B produced 7676.68GWh of electricity.
It is a 1198MW = 1.198GW reactor and should have been able to produce 1.198 x 365 x 24 = 10494.48GWh
The load factor is therefore 7676.68/10494.48 = 73.2%.
- Power Reactor Information System (PRIS); IAEA (https://pris.iaea.org/PRIS/CountryStatistics/CountryDetails.aspx?current=GB) ↩︎
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