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by Retric 1732 days ago
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.
1 comments
shakow 1732 days ago
France is now close to its daily subpeak (https://www.rte-france.com/en/eco2mix/electricity-consumptio...) and exports (https://www.electricitymap.org/zone/FR) 11.5GW while importing 1GW, i.e. a surplus of >10GW, with over 50GW to spare in hydro and nuclear alone. The worst peak being at around 80GW during the winter, they should do good should they be independent at some point for whatever reason.
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Retric 1732 days ago
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.

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shakow 1732 days ago
> 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

Indeed, which is why I wrote “The worst peak being at around 80GW during the winter [...]”.

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