A number of options are available to cover this energy demand: they can basically be divided into two groups, thermal power plants and power plants running on renewable energy sources. Thermal power plants break down into oil-fired, gas-fired, lignite-fired, hard-coal-fired and nuclear power plants. Apart from hydroelectric power, the main renewable energy sources are wind power, solar energy, biomass and geothermal energy.

Different electricity production options are rated differently in environmental and economic terms, but the difference in generating power (a 1000 MW coal-fired power

Design and Construction of Nuclear Power Plants. First Edition.

Rudiger Meiswinkel, Julian Meyer, Jurgen Schnell.

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Hydroelectric power Natural gas

Coal

Nuclear energy Other renewable energies

plant is equivalent to 200 offshore or 400 onshore wind farms, for example) makes it clear that, essentially, the only way that rising world energy demand will be met is by using powerful cogeneration plants.

As Figure 1.2 shows, even though renewable energies are set to expand enormously in the coming decades, the capacity they actually generate will only grow slightly, so that their percentage share of total electricity generated will actually fall. The forecasts by World Energy Council (WEC) and IEA also say that even after 2020, more than 70% of energy will be obtained from coal, oil and gas, and the share of nuclear power will increase considerably. As well as output, having a reliable electricity supply is also extremely important, which also shows that thermal power plants are essential. If we look at a typical day load curve as in Figure 1.3 — broken down into baseload, average load and peak load — it is clear that thermal power plants are needed for baseload particularly.