It could but there are also some pragmatic considerations…nuclear units have many more automatic trip features than their fossil counterparts – even on the non-nuclear (turbine) side of the plant. But this is good – the emphasis is on nuclear safety, protecting the core. But it also means you have a little more risk of losing the unit when ramping up or down on a nuke. What might be an alarm on a coal burner might trip the turbine on a nuke and if you’re anywhere near full power, a turbine trip results in an automatic SCRAM on the GE plants.
Of course, you can also argue that the larger the unit (regardless of fuel source) the less you want to use it for load following. The load dispatcher really hates to see a large unit go off-line unexpectedly.
PS. Thanks for the article Planning Engineer – very interesting and informative.
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