Abstract A viable strategy to reduce the global carbon dioxide emissions is the substitution of fossil fuels with non-carbon sources for electricity generation. Because wind power is intermittent and solar irradiance is periodically variable, the capacity factors of renewable units are significantly lower than those of fossil fuel units. As a consequence, the needed installed capacity for wind and solar units is higher than the capacity of the fossil fuel power plants to be substituted. In addition, energy storage becomes necessary to satisfy the fluctuating demand of all electricity grids. Nuclear energy will assist with this substitution, because nuclear power plants generate continuously and exhibit capacity factors very close to 100%. Using data for the hourly power demand and supply in a large electricity grid, this paper examines the effects a nuclear-renewables mix will have on the electricity generation industry. It is determined that the addition of some nuclear generating capacity decreases by a factor of approximately 3 the required wind capacity and by a factor of 6 the required solar installed capacity. The contributions of nuclear energy also result in reductions of the dissipated energy in the storage-regeneration processes and the needed utility-level storage capacity.

中文翻译：

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核能对化石燃料替代的影响

摘要 减少全球二氧化碳排放的一个可行策略是用非碳源替代化石燃料发电。由于风力发电是间歇性的，太阳辐照度是周期性变化的，可再生能源机组的容量系数明显低于化石燃料机组。因此，风能和太阳能装置所需的装机容量高于将被替代的化石燃料发电厂的容量。此外，为了满足所有电网波动的需求，储能变得必要。核能将有助于这种替代，因为核电站持续发电并且其容量系数非常接近 100%。使用大型电网中每小时电力需求和供应的数据，本文研究了核可再生能源组合对发电行业的影响。确定增加的一些核能发电容量减少了所需风能容量的大约 3 倍和所需太阳能装机容量的 6 倍。核能的贡献还导致存储再生过程中耗散的能量和所需的公用事业级存储容量的减少。