New analysis from the Smart Energy Council shows the introduction of seven nuclear reactors to Australia will shut down solar panels in millions of households.

Smart Energy Council Chief Executive John Grimes says the true extent of the impact of nuclear power on Australian solar families has been hidden until now.

“Nuclear power can’t be switched off, meaning it keeps pushing power into the grid regardless of whether it is the most expensive form of energy, or it’s even needed,” he said.

“That is bad news for Australian solar homes.”

The Coalition nuclear plan could generate around 11 Gigawatts of new nuclear power (see Table 1).

The Smart Energy Council’s analysis shows that even operating at a minimum 60% capacity, Peter Dutton’s nuclear proposal could force 6.6 Gigawatts of eye-wateringly expensive energy into the grid and power bills of 7 million Australians and displace the equivalent solar power generation from between 1.8 – 2.9 million homes.

“To create space for inflexible nuclear power plants ramming energy into the grid, millions of household solar systems will be the first casualty,” Mr Grimes said.

“Solar power is already being switched off in South Australia when it makes so much free power available that it exceeds electricity demand.”

“Solar is by far the cheapest form of energy, yet Peter Dutton is telling Australian families to tear out the solar systems they paid for and spend billions of dollars on the most expensive form of power, which is nuclear.”

“The Federal Opposition is deceiving Australians about the horror price tag of their nuclear nightmare.”

“This is a $600b dollar nuclear tax bill for Australian households during a cost-of-living crisis.”

As the cost of panels continues to fall, we are achieving record high installations for rooftop solar. This is complemented by household battery prices falling at the steepest rates ever.

It’s for this reason that Australia’s coal fired power plants are closing, because they cannot compete with the low cost of energy provided by solar. Perversely, the Coalition is proposing the taxpayer replace them with the most expensive, and inflexible, form of power generation; nuclear.

“Over a third of Australian households have invested in the lowest cost form of electricity with solar panels, with annual energy bill savings of around $1000, Mr Grimes said.

“The choice for Australians is simple: cheap and reliable rooftop solar or nuclear nightmare.”

“We can either continue to grow our rooftop solar industry and the 30,000+ local jobs that come with it, or start a nuclear industry that will kill our world leading solar industry.”

“Let’s think about what that money could buy instead. For the price of just one of the Coalition’s nuclear reactors, the Latrobe Valley, Hunter Valley, Port Augusta, Central Queensland, could each have a new hospital and several schools.”

Just last week, rooftop solar hit a record high percentage of supply for the grid (Monday Sept 9), supplying 38.6% (10,838 MW) and coal dipped below 50% for the first time ever.

One in three Australian households currently have rooftop solar, this is conservatively tipped to reach one in two by 2040. This is when the Coalition’s nuclear reactors are meant to start coming online, at which point they’ll begin forcing solar out of the grid.

Analysis

• The Federal Opposition has proposed seven nuclear sites with a capacity to replace the coal fired power stations, totalling around 11 gigawatts (GW) worth of nuclear power.
• The impact of 11 GW worth of nuclear power being connected to the grid in 2040 will be a minimum 6.6 GW of power forcing out cheaper renewable energy sources when the grid is full.
• Running inefficiently at 60% during daylight hours – 0700 to 1800 – there will be 72.6 GWh produced over a day.
• Over the period of a year, this generation will total 26,499 GWh during sunlight hours.
• The 26,499 GWh of extra generation during the day when solar is producing will be beyond the required amount on the grid, resulting in a ramp-down of rooftop solar.
• In 2040, during daylight hours, the grid will be almost entirely run by solar and wind energy, which is what AEMO’s step change shows in Figure 1 below.
• The addition of this inflexible nuclear baseload will result in too much power during daylight hours.
• To avoid overloads, the equivalent capacity of energy will need to be removed from the grid.
• This will be your rooftop solar because it is an easier load to remove from the grid.
• The current standard household solar system at 6.6 kW produces 25 kWh of power a day, and 915 kWh over the year.
• The 26,499 GWh of nuclear power being forced onto the grid during these sunlight hours is equivalent to 2,896,066 household solar systems, which will need to be turned off to avoid a grid overload.
• If accounting for estimated larger system sizes in the future producing 1460 kWh a year, this number varies to 1,815,000 household solar systems.

The analysis above does not include the following factors:

• The cost to household’s force to pay higher power prices driven up by nuclear, the most expensive form of energy generation.
• The Coalitions nuclear cost to the taxpayer to retrofit solar shutdown devices on your household solar system.
• The cost to grid market operators involved in the orchestration of such inflexible loads and shutting down solar.
• The ramp-down of cheap wind energy during non-daylight hours.
• The reduction in utility-scale solar on top of rooftop solar.
• The increased costs of energy storage that relies on cheap renewable energy.
• The impact this will have on the rooftop solar industry, that employs an estimated 30,000 people.

For interviews and more information, please contact Tim Lamacraft on 0488 972 192 or Wayne Smith on 0417 141 812 or at wayne@smartenergy.org.au

Table 1. Current coal capacity of proposed nuclear sites

Figure 1. AEMO’s Step Change analysis of generation capacity to 2050

For interviews and more information, please contact Tim Lamacraft on 0488 972 192.