> but my assumption is that they cannot carry enough power
Right now (https://www.electricitymap.org/zone/DE), Germany is importing from France alone the equivalent of a bit under two French nuclear power plants at full power.
They are a net exporter because they have to sell their wind/solar power for cheap when they have too much of it, but are then forced to buy nuclear/hydro power from their neighbors when their coal power plants are not enough to compensate the ramp-up in demand and/or the lack of wind/sun.
France could be electrically self-sufficient, Germany couldn't -- whether they would depend on FR/BE/NL/... being irrelevant.
France exports a lot of nuclear power on nights and weekends while importing power during peak demand. Their actually further from self sufficiency.
It gets more complicated on a euro per kWh basis as Frances nuclear is much more expensive so economically their losing money even if it looks better in terms of cash flows.
Self sufficiency is really about the delta between demand and available supply. It’s the worse case not average that’s the issue so you normally need to look at the coldest and hottest days not September which is when a lot of production is taken offline because demand is so low. Even that’s not the full picture individual power plants may be taken offline for a wide range of reasons.
That said, self sufficiency is expensive and generally not worth the costs involved.
That's right. Germany exports when the sun is shining and the prices are low to Switzerland and Austria who use it to pump water up the Alps. When there is no sun in Germany, they buy it back at a high price from Switzerland and Austria who convert the stored water to electricity.
The accounting gets tricky. France is generally paying more per kWh of nuclear than they generally get it from exporting it. However, the marginal costs per kWh is below what their receiving.
French nuclear power is such a bad deal for the country they try really hard to avoid showing the public how massive the subsidies are. Oddly enough this seems to have worked, and meanwhile they significantly reduced emissions which is a win for the environment.
The only bad deal is a crazily reactive interconnected market, which, when combined with solar/wind production, destroys long-term investments.
Solar/wind, when it products, crashes market prices. Nuclear is supposed to produce at those hours too, except that if it does, it sells at a loss; and if it doesn't, it blows its load factor which is supposed to be its strong point. In both cases, because of the destabilisation of the production equilibrium, caused by solar and wind, the balance of nuclear is endangered.
Yet nuclear is needed to deal with the very common lacks of solar/wind. Hence the global result: prices getting higher. The irony is that the State itself subsidies solar/wind, both directly, and indirectly by forcing the electrical company (which is mostly State-owned, and which also owns the nuclear plants) to buy solar/wind electricity at ridiculously high prices, which is killing its balance and forces it to raise consumer prices.
There was no such problem when there was not a market like the present one, and when there was no solar/wind. Production was OK, prices were low. All was going fine. The problem was introduced by a liberalisation dogma that "had" to be applied to everything and the kitchen sink + a pro-renewable/anti-nuclear dogma (renewable is not bad per se, but the consequences of its rushed development have been ignored, despite being very foreseeable).
Which is in part an outgrowth of bringing cheaper wind and solar electricity sources online combined with inexpensive natural gas. The headline ultra low wind and solar prices hide the fact they are still profitable to bring online meaning it’s selling enough energy at positive prices to add more. It is also profitable to add batteries to the electric grid in California which should offset other peaking sources like natural gas. The question of what becomes of nuclear may simply be it’s largely phased out with some being kept around as a combination of energy source and useful isotope generator.
1. That's not the point, the point being to illustrate how interconnected the EU grid is.
2. Regarding your comment, I personally don't see Germany importing 72 gCO2/MW power to export 399 gCO2/MW power as a good thing for anyone but coal companies, but whatever floats your boat.
"the point being to illustrate how interconnected the EU grid is."
Which is a good thing. Very few countries are self sufficient regarding cars for example, or Kiwis. So humanity invented trading and people trade things they don't have for things they have - so good interconnection is a good thing.