The cost of electric power generation in Guangdong Province

ABSTRACT

The typical thermal power plant, nuclear power plant, hydropower plant, liquefied natural gas power plant, wind power plant, and biomass power plant in Guangdong province were selected as the research objective in the present study. The corrected calculation model was utilized to study the total cost of electric power generation (COE) for various power plants. The results show that the competitiveness on the environmental protection of thermal power plants is the weakest because the cost of environment reaches 62.810 yuan/MWh, which is much higher than those of other types of power plants. The total COE of hydropower plant was the lowest at 256.011 yuan/MWh. The total cost of biomass power plant is the highest one, which arrives at 668.865 yuan/MWh.

KEYWORDS:

• Cost of electric power generation
• energy policy
• energy structure
• environment
• power plant

Acknowledgments

This research was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 51376066, 51611130194), the Central Universities Fundamental Research Project in SCUT (201522083), and the Guangdong Province Key Laboratory of Efficient and Clean Energy Utilization (No. 2013A061401005).

Nomenclature

CF(n)	=	annual fuel cost, yuan;
CM(n)	=	annual maintenance cost, yuan;
COD	=	cost of asset depreciation, yuan/MWh;
COE	=	total cost of electric power generation, yuan/MWh;
COEn	=	environmental cost, yuan/MWh;
COF	=	cost of fuel, yuan/MWh;
COM	=	cost of maintenance, yuan/MWh;
COP	=	financial cost, yuan/MWh;
i	=	discount rate, %;
j	=	the jth kind;
k	=	sum of all kinds;
m	=	repayment period, a;
n	=	lifetime of power plant, a;
P	=	installed capacity, MW;
Qj	=	the jth pollutant emission, kg/MWh;
s	=	line loss rate, %;
Vej	=	the jth pollutant environmental value, yuan/kg;
β	=	loan interest rate, %;
ηe	=	power consumption rate, %;
ηN	=	average annual operation efficiency, %;
τ	=	annual utilization hours, h/a;
ψ	=	financial recovery factor of equal pay series.