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by Moldoteck
614 days ago
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nuclear can be turned modulated pretty fast too, look at France. We indeed should look at final year balance.
Edf indeed needs to sell as much as they can, because of arenh. Afaik it'll end in the end of 2025. "In France, alternative retailers (i.e. those who aren’t EDF) can currently secure regulated access to energy produced by EDF’s existing nuclear fleet under the ARENH mechanism. It places an obligation on EDF to sell up to 100 TWh of nuclear power annually (about 25% of its production in France) at a regulated price of €42/MWh." It's interesting how the things will turn the next year indeed and how edf will handle it's new freedom |
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Nope. Albeit being shock-full of nuclear reactors... France always maintains fossil fuel active in order to load-follow. Add 'peakers' (needed during peak-demand) and here is the result: https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/energy?Metric=Share+of+...
Details: there are safety-related limits (power modulation proportion, duration of a pause needed after each modulation, modulations frequency...) to nuclear load-following capacity, and the very combustible status is a major parameter.
Pertinent document (French ahead!): https://www.sfen.org/rgn/expertise-nucleaire-francaise-suivi...
« un réacteur peut varier de 100 % à 20 % de puissance en une demi-heure, et remonter aussi vite après un palier d’au moins deux heures, et ce deux fois par jour »
Proposed translation: "a reactor power output can vary from 100% to 20% in 30 minutes, then after 2 hours can go back to 100% at the same speed, and can cycle this way 2 times per day".
This is quite a good performance when it comes to load-following (French engineers are very good at this), however it is insufficient in the real world (save any ridiculously expensive over-provision of nuclear reactor, most idling) and very weak compared to gas turbines performances.
> Edf indeed needs to sell as much as they can
No. EDF always needed to sell as much as they can, even before AREHN, because maintaining a high load factor for their nuclear reactors is financially key. An idle industrial reactor is a financial disaster.