Renewable baseload power: More affordable, faster and more flexible than old baseload power, particularly when DC-coupled.

The challenge: Baseload power yesterday and today

During more than 100 years, baseload power, i.e. electricity provided around the clock, was generated mainly by two electricity generating resources:

Coal power: Available 24/7 as long as coal reserves in coal-fired power plants were available, coal-fired power plants provided stable power independent of e.g. fluctuating renewable resources. Coal also provided some flexibility, i.e. was, whilst slowly, adjustable to changes in electricity demand. The challenges with coal power, leading to a constantly decreasing share of coal in most electricity mixes globally, were mainly two-fold:

increasing environmental concerns around CO2, SO2, NOx, fine particles and other toxic emissions adversely affecting the climate globally and air quality locally

the availability of coal as a non-renewable, finite global resource

Nuclear power: Also available 24/7, nuclear power represented the new hope in baseload power due to not emitting any CO2 during power generation. However, various drawbacks emerged around nuclear power, slowing down its global adoption in last years:

Risks of nuclear accidents which no insurance or re-insurance companies globally would commit to insure, have materialized in Tschernobyl and Japan with severe consequences for humans and nature surrounding the assets. More than 10 radiological accidents happened in the last 25 years according to the International Atomic Energy Agency itself (IAEA 2025), underlining the health threats of nuclear power.

Nuclear waste and its consequences for generations to come: A problem still largely un-solved in commercial nuclear applications, nuclear waste is seen as a costly and risky externality of nuclear power and, due to its radioactivity for thousands of years, at times named a “mortgage” load on future generations

High costs: Nuclear power, if newly built today, is the most expensive form of large-scale electricity generation. In the UK, construction of Hinkley Point 3 is ongoing whilst taking several years longer than expected and is currently estimated to produce electricity at 128 GBP / MWh (Bloomberg, 2025), for baseload-power not offering flexibility.

Lack of speed: Nuclear power generation is very slow in getting built: Whilst all current projects in Europe suffer from multi-year delays and respective cost over-runs, Olkiluoto 3, Europe’s newest nuclear power plant in operation since 2023, came online with a 14 years or 450% delay and related cost increase vs. original schedule (Global Construction Review, 2024).

To conclude: Leveraging and building on the success of PV power, particularly utility-scale PV power, all benefits and original reasons for expanding PV power (renewable energy, affordability and speed) can be maintained and can further be augmented with the benefits provided by “Renewable baseload power”: Whilst PV-BESS hybrid projects in general offer new baseload power which is renewable, fast, affordable and flexible, DC-coupling BV-BESS co-location architectures make such hybrids even more affordable and flexible. Comparing the numbers provided above, it’s likely that PV-BESS projects will be the new baseload power going forward.