It is the lifetime cost per megawatt-hour of electricity over the life of the plant.
It does not take into account the time distribution of demand or the time distribution of power generation.
This would be Ok, if we had magic batteries that were free, with infinite capacity.
Such batteries do not exist.
“It would be nice if the author would tell us what “Levelized Cost of Electricity” is defined as.”
He does, in the last paragraph, at least enough for to understand. But I agree, he could spend more time on it.
Basically it goes like this: Electricity consumption varies GREATLY over time, it varies greatly by the second, the minute, the hour, the day of the week (or holiday), and the time of year. So there must be a means to store energy, and here are the means:
Nuke Plants: The Uranium that is prevented from performing its heat-creating fission reaction by the rods inserted into it.
Coal Plants: By the huge piles of coal sitting next to the generators.
Oil and Gas Fired Plants: By the huge tanks that store oil and natural gas.
Hydroelectric: By the water sitting upstream of the plant.
Solar/Wind: Nothing at this point.
The problem is that the storage cost is very, very, low for all but solar/wind (basically zero for hydro), but incredibly high for solar/wind (batteries or pumped water storage).
So they ‘conveniently’ leave out the storage cost for solar/wind. After all, the price of electricity was already TRIPLE the US price in Europe before Putin’s unprovoked (LOL) attack on Ukraine. Since then, the price, at least in Germany has doubled again (to roughly 60 cents per kwh, retail, which is more than the fuel cost of running a portable generator in the US).
But NEVER FORGET, the Globalists now in power know EXACTLY what they’re doing. The math is easy, and they can do it just as easily as we can.