Estimating the costs of nuclear power: benchmarks and uncertainties

François Lévêque (1)

1 CERNA i3 - Centre d'économie industrielle i3

Is the cost per MWh generated by existing French nuclear power stations €32 or €49? Does building a next-generation EPR reactor represent an investment of about €2,000 per kW, or twice that amount? The controversy about the cost price borne by EDF resurfaced when a new law on electricity was passed in 2010, requiring France's incumbent operator to sell part of the output from its nuclear power plants to downstream competitors. Under this law the sale price is set by the authorities and must reflect the production costs of existing facilities. GDF Suez, EDF's main competitor, put these costs at about €32 per MWh, whereas the operator reckoned its costs were almost €20 higher. How can such a large difference be justified? Is it just a matter of a buyer and a seller tossing numbers in the air, their sole concern being to influence the government in order to obtain the most favourable terms? Or is one of the figures right, the other wrong?

Domaines: Economies et finances

François Lévêque. Estimating the costs of nuclear power: benchmarks and uncertainties. 2013. ⟨hal-00782190v2⟩