A Method for Adding Large-scale Nuclear Power Plant Units into a Limited Grid: A Case Study of the Sudanese Grid

Nuclear energy has been widely used as a source for electricity in many developed countries. The reason behind that lies in its capability of producing clean, cheap and reliable energy. Nevertheless, introducing relatively large-scale Nuclear Power Plant units, which considered to be more economic, into a limited power system grid could be the main obstacle for many developing countries with limited grid capacity. Therefore, possible solution for this problem is to operate the nuclear power plant units in a load following mode or integrate a system of Pumped-Storage Hydropower PSH into the limited grid. This paper suggests to test three scenarios in order to get the large possible size NPP units that can be safely and economically added to a particular limited capacity grid. For the first and the second scenarios, the nuclear units will be operated as a base load and load following mode respectively with integration of the pumped-storage hydropower. Regarding the third scenario, the nuclear power plant units will be only operated as a load following mode without the integration of pumped-storage hydropower system. For each scenario, a unit commitment model will be formulated and solved. Sudanese grid will be taken as a case study to examine whether it is possible to safely and economically introduce large nuclear power units (2units / 600MW) as well as to find out the most economical operational scheme for Sudanese grid after introducing the nuclear power plant. For Sudanese grid, the results have shown that operating nuclear power plant units (2units /600MW) in a baseload mode with integration of pumped-storage hydro power units is the best economic scenario.