The Value of Load Following Capacity: Will Increasing Renewable Share in Europe’s Electricity Reduce Nuclear Reactors’ Capacity or Load Factors.

Summary Nuclear energy cost structure makes it a base load technology. In the cases where varíable renewable production has a higher priority on the grid, renewable lechnologies will reduce load factors of dispatchable technologies. If not able to follow residual load, nuclear reaclors could be supplanted by more flexible technologies. In this paper, we study the disregarded load following capacity of nuclear reactors for the nuclear industry in terms of preserved market share.