French nuclear in trouble

[Ken]

We have been a net exporter to France for some weeks now but today it is max export and here is the reason why. Found this on Australian site!


France pays the steep cost of inflexible and ageing nuclear as electricity prices soar

Giles Parkinson 4 April 2022 10
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A cold snap in France and nuclear shutdowns

The common refrain among critics of wind and solar is to blame their “variability” or “intermittency” for soaring electricity prices as Europe wrestles with gas shortages worsened by the war in Ukraine. But France, the nuclear “pin-up” country for the anti-renewables brigade, is not faring so well either.

Over the weekend, the key “day ahead” prices of electricity in France surged to unprecedented levels. On Friday, the futures price for “baseload” for wholesale French electricity price hit the eye-watering level of €714 a megawatt hour ($A1050/MWh).

It didn’t get much better by Sunday, when the day-ahead price for Monday settled at €515/MWh ($A758/MWh), which is the predicted average price over a 24-hour period. The price for peak electricity between 8am and 9am was €2,987/MWh ($A4,400/MWh).

The prices for both baseload and peak prices in the rest of the European market were significantly cheaper, and in Germany it was dramatically so.

The main reasons? Both supply and demand. Less than half (30GW) of France’s 64GW of nuclear capacity was available, thanks to planned and unplanned outages, and extended repairs due to corrosion issues in their ageing plants.

[Countrypaul]

I just wonder if the french might be looking a little further ahead than perhaps we give them credit for? If they can shutdown some of their reactors now by importing electricity and have those reactors almost all running throughout next winter when mad vlad has cut the gas supply to Europe they might be in much better position than most of the rest of Europe. On the other hand maybe I'm thinking too far ahead

[Moxi]

Some of the planned outages are eighteen months to two years long, the unplanned outages can take anywhere from 3 months for very minor items to several years for significant issues and could in some instances lead to early closure and decommissioning.

The corrosion issues are numerous and complex and extend to neutron embrittlement so I would think that the affected stations are looking at reduced thermal loads, possible off load refuelling where an appropriate station is affected as well as a host of other attempts to limp the stations along.

I don’t think they’re ahead of any game at all I think they’re firmly behind the black ball and I hope they get some lucky breaks at a few stations to enable them to limp on until they have some new prime movers built.

I wonder if they’re still moaning about our wind turbines and alleged state aid this week while they but the power that they generate ?

Moxi

[dan_b]

And of course they're still years away from the new EPR at Flammanville coming online - that can't be helping them either?

[Ken]

A bankrupt company EDF propped up by a bankrupt country building a bankrupt tech.

The whole thing is head in the sand, kick it down the road, and "it will be alright on the day" and now it is catching up big time.

[Mart]

A bankrupt company EDF propped up by a bankrupt country building a bankrupt tech.

The whole thing is head in the sand, kick it down the road, and "it will be alright on the day" and now it is catching up big time.

Totally agree. I don't even think you are exaggerating, and it's not the fault of nuclear (so to speak) it's cleaner than coal and cheaper when externalities are included, it's just had its day. And I totally understand why HPC was agreed in 2012 (not sure why the contract was signed in 2015 when the economics were collapsing) a fair bet, which went wrong, but still a fair bet 10yrs ago.

But what absolutely blows my mind are the lengths that this Gov is going to, to push SZC through. If it could help tomorrow, maybe it would make sense, but it's just like the Tory sub groups that are pushing for oil and gas exploration (20-30yrs for production), or to allow fracking, an economic and environmental disaster. We could pour money into RE, especially as there are massive pipelines of GW's already progressing, and also storage, with benefits in 1-5yrs. So what in holy hell is the attraction of another two French EPR's, that'll cost vastly more than the alternatives available today, and won't arrive till 2037(?) ish?

Blows my mind everytime.

Was going to apologise for the rant, but this was actually quite a fun post, just laughing at my own state of bewilderment.

[Moxi]

And tonight we hear that the Welsh secretary is in the US A talking to Westinghouse and Bectel about presumably a BWR for Wylfa.

Madness


Moxi

[ecogeorge]

I guess the continued 2.1G export to France is money driven ?
Who is recieving the income? and how significant is it ?
George

[Ken]

Good question.
Yes it is price driven and i guess that the money must go to a central pot to be dished out to the producers in the ratio that they were supplying to the grid during the 1/2hr tender period.

2GW of export is 2GW of wind that does not need to be curtailed.

I think the UK nuclear thing is being driven by the fact that the present fleet is terminal, and eggs in baskets and perhaps to pay over the odds for a little amount of very reliable supply (which i believe is out of date thinking).

[Stinsy]

I guess the continued 2.1G export to France is money driven ?
Who is recieving the income? and how significant is it ?
George

Definitely money driven! There are occasions where we are cranking the CCGT to export to France.

I guess the operator of the interconnect buys the energy on one wholesale market and sells it on the other wholesale market, using the price difference to cover operating costs, capital costs, etc.