The sort-of-deal between Engie and the government is all about a 10-year LTO.
International regulatory-wise, LTO’s are 20 years, so where does this come from?
Engie does not hide that it wants to abandon nuclear plants a.s.a.p.
One should realise that Engie is not an nuclear specialist, they own only the Belgian plants, which they have bought as a quick financial win, not realising what they were getting into. The pitfalls were increasing nuclear safety rules, and unreliable government partners.
10 years must have looked like a fair compromise between getting out a.s.a.p., logistical problems, and not loosing investment money after being forced into an LTO.
Once that is settled, what should be the electricity price in order not to loose the investment?
Follow the money:
1) power of KCD-4 and CNT-3 is 2 GW (electric)
2) assume an uptime of 80%, taking into account refuelling cycles, scheduled maintenance, problem solving
3) in 10 years, these NPPs produce 140 TWh, or 14 TWh/y, where Belgium currently uses 94 TWh/y electricity, and 757 TWh/y total energy
4) guess the required modernisation investment and fuel cost amounts 2 Mld EUR
5) then what should be the price for Engie to have a business case?
6) let’s try to bill 70 EUR/MWh to the customer
7) Engie thus will bill 9.8 Mld EUR of revenue in those 10 years
8) Engie is asked to put 5 Mld EUR on top of the 18 Mld EUR in the Synatom fund, to get to the required 23 Mld EUR needed for demolition (8 Mld EUR) and waste management (15 Mld EUR)
9) net gain after 2 Mld EUR investments and 5 Mld EUR extra Synatom taxes is therefore 2.8 Mld EUR over the 10 year LTO period, which can be used to operate the joint and keep everybody in and around Engie pretty happy
10) so after 10 years, no financial harm done for Engie, and gracefully bailing out is a fact
We’re thus guessing the price tab for the Engie part of your bill will be around 0.70 EUR/kWh, not including any taxes or markups.
That’s expensive. But it gets worse.
Taxes and markups will grow according ELIA and Fluvius investment plans. These plans are needed because we are NOT going nuclear.
And it gets even worse.
Today your family home consumes 3500 kWh/y, or 8500 kWh/y per capita if you count your total footprint in society. But this 3500 kWh/y grows to 12000 kWh/y when you install your heat pump and replace your car with an EV. Whenever the ELIA and Fluvius investments are realised.
And you need to tear down your family home and rebuild it EPC-friendly (isolation, windows, floor heating system, heat pump, new electrical installation, say 100,000 EUR). And buy an EV (say another 50,000 EUR).
But you save on gas.
It took us about 1 hour to get this calculation done, not 470 days. We guess Engie also took 1 hour to compute this, about 470 days ago.
Next question: how to get to a 750 TWh/y total energy conversion with two 1 GW plants, some gas plants, occasional wind and sunshine? Compost or so?
That is still the biggest mystery of the 21st century…