Abstract
The current trends in development and installation of solar and wind energy poses certain challenges over the stability of the future electricity grids. New regulations or energy storage systems will be essential to enable this large renewable penetration.In the present paper, a zero-emissions scenario composed solely of nuclear energy and renewables is proposed. The article analyzes the potential for nuclear power plants to perform the demand regulation function by coupling them with a crypto-asset mining facility, which provides a fast adaptation to the load-following requirements. The plant, operated at full power, will divert part of its energy to the mining facility when the electricity grid is saturated with renewable energy.An integral economic assessment of the coupled system is performed. To account for the uncertainties involved, different scenarios are assessed, varying the cryptocurrency price, network hashrate, hardware capabilities and lifespan. A profitability analysis is made comparing the benefits of both mining and selling energy to the grid, to the cost of producing that energy to find out if new-built plants would be positively balanced. The results show that only under circumstances of very high cryptoasset price and low network hashrate the cryptomining project would be profitable.
Published Version
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