[lovemenot]

France has 80% nuclear. It works there not because French reactors can respond meaningfully to short-term meteorology, but because: 1) France is connected to a continent-sized grid and 2) All of France's neighbours are nowhere near 80% nuclear, so will buy this baseload power.

If Germany, NL, Denmark, Spain, UK et al. had 80% nuclear France's nuclear power would become uneconomic.

It's the grid and unique political considerations, not those plants' responsiveness that makes it work for France.

[feb]

The French do vary the power of the reactors to follow the load [1] [2]. They don't purely rely on their neighbors, far from it. As a consequence, the usage factor of the plants is lower than nuclear plants in countries where they they purely use them for base load.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Load_following_power_plant [2] https://www.oecd-nea.org/nea-news/2011/29-2/aen-infos-suivi-...