Baseload power plants can supply electricity on a continuous basis, but due to their high investment costs, they have to be in operation almost continuously in order to be profitable. Will this type of power plant still be needed in the future energy system to ensure security of supply? Experts at “Energy Systems of the Future“ (ESYS) – a joint initiative of acatech, Leopoldina and Akademienunion – have looked into this question with the help of simulations. And as the Discussion Paper “Nuclear Fission, Natural Gas, Geothermal Energy, Nuclear Fusion: The Future Role of Baseload Power Plants” shows: baseload power plants are not essential to ensure a secure electricity supply. But they may have a role to play in the future if they represent a cost competitive proposition.
Baseload power plants may be part of the future energy system – but they are not expected to be essential
A combination of solar and wind energy installations with storage facilities, a flexible hydrogen system, flexible electricity consumption and residual-load power plants will definitely be required to ensure a climate-friendly and reliable electricity supply. Residual-load power plants – e.g. in the form of hydrogen-fuelled gas turbine plants – only run when needed. Baseload power plants can be integrated into this type of system. Their greatest contribution to the system overall would be to supply electrolysers with their surplus electricity and thus to reduce hydrogen imports. However, supply security will still be ensured without baseload power plants.
The ESYS experts focused on four technologies in their analysis: nuclear power plants, combined cycle gas turbine plants for natural gas with subsequent CO2 capture, geothermal energy for electricity generation and nuclear fusion power plants. Gas-fired power plants are mostly likely to be realised on a large scale in the next 20 years. The challenges here are that first the infrastructure for the captured CO2 has to be built, a parallel gas and hydrogen infrastructure has to be operated and residual emissions from gas production and the operation of the power plant must be offset.
The costs of energy supply are unlikely to be reduced by baseload power plants
Based on how the costs of the various technologies have been shaping up so far, the ESYS experts do not expect that baseload power plants would reduce overall energy supply costs. ”For baseload power plants to substantially lower costs, their own costs would have to fall considerably below the level currently forecast,“ emphasises Karen Pittel, Director of the ifo Institute and Deputy Chair of the ESYS Board of Directors. ”Indeed, our estimations tend towards the risks of cost increases and delays with base-load technologies actually being higher than with further expansion of solar and wind energy.“