France seems to work. They have plenty of nuclear power that is flexible. And you can have other forms of consumption flexibility; otherwise wind and solar are really in trouble.
France uses their own and their neighbors fossil capacity to manage nuclear inflexibility.
When a cold spell hits France exports turn to imports.
Now EDF is crying about renewables lowering nuclear earning potential and increasing maintenance costs.
The problem is that they are up against economic incentives. Why should a company or person with solar and storage buy grid based nuclear power? They don’t.
Why should they not sell their excess to their neighbors? They do.
French nuclear is more flexible than coal by design and as flexible as many older gas plants with ALFC system. They can reach up to 0.5%/second modulation (proved by Philipsburg) if the situation requires but it's rarely the case if you have a fleet. It's still not as fast as BWR's that can reach 1%/second but german coal is the slowest load follower and still meets min requirements imposed by the grid.
"When a cold spell hits France exports turn to imports." - was true in the past, a bit, but afaik this and last winter France was net exporting a ton. And with FLA3 reaching full capacity this year it'll be even less of a problem. It's not like they have a problem now, they are the largest net exporter on the continent and it's unlikely to change soon.
"Now EDF is crying about renewables lowering nuclear earning potential and increasing maintenance costs." - yes, because ren generation is acting like a parasitic source without proper BESS deployments - they eat into firm power profits without providing firm power benefits.
"Why should a company or person with solar and storage buy grid based nuclear power? They don’t." - because in many places of the world solar+bess are not sufficient. It's also the reason why Microsoft signed a contract for TMI way above market prices instead of building a fully offgrid ren solution
EDF is selling power to neighbors and makes money from it. It also is modulating it's npp a lot, which will maybe change when AC's will be more widely deployed and EV's will expand. It also is trying to schedule most maintenance works in summer, during lowest demand periods
Which are paragraph after paragraph agreeing that nuclear power is inflexible, can’t meet a true grid load on its own without flexibility and that renewables craters the earning potential of both existing and new built reactors.
As EDF will be able to sell fewer and fewer hours at a profit we will likely see them crying for handouts to even maintain the existing plants. Let alone new builds requiring 18-24 cent/kWh average prices to cover the costs.
Who is agreeing that nuclear is inflexible? RTE real generation data is a direct proof it's false.
EDF needs no handouts for maintenance of their reactors. But I'm eager to see their profits evolution in 2026 H1 after arenh got ditched.
There will be some govt loans for EPR2, but the amount is rather tiny if we compare to say German EEG fund.
The proposed subsidies for the EPR2 program is 11 cents kWh and interest free loans. Sum freely, but you end up towards 20 cents kWh.
Why always the German comparison? Who even brought up Germany Can’t the nuclear handouts stand on their own?
The EEG costs are quickly going down as expensive early projects are losing their subsidies.
Renewables and storage are built in massive amounts all over the world without subsidies.
Why this completely one sided focus on absolutely massive handouts for the electricity sector, which is already solved by renewables and storage for the 99% of the cases when we still need to decarbonize industry, agriculture, construction, aviation, maritime shipping etc?
It makes absolutely and sounds like a solution looking for a problem, with a bunch of people who can’t let go attached to it.
It is the fax machine of the internet age. It is time to let go.
Yes, epr2 will get some state loans and cfds, if approved by EC.
I brought up Germany because it's a famous example of lots of subsidies going into transition/deployment
EEG costs are projected to rise per EWI because even though most expensive contracts are being over, it's paid more frequently. It's projected nr will reach 23bn/y.
"which is already solved by renewables and storage for the 99% of the cases" - it's not solved by far in Europe unless you add something on top, eg. Gas firming.
It's interesting to say nuclear is a fax machine in the internet age when nuclear is our youngest invention to extract energy while solar/wind/hydro are much older. Such arguments make no sense whatsoever
France is part of the EU power grid and flexibility comes from that not from nuclear power plants.
And the government had to rise the subsidies for nuclear energy to prevent higher rises of the energy prices. The costs for the consumers still raised.
And their power plants were in trouble in the last hot summer because the rivers were too hot to be used for cooling. Won‘t be the last time. And that will be a big problem when people turn on their AC in a heat wave but the power plants can’t power up because they don’t have enough cool water.
And that was before drone wars were a thing.
People react nervously when unknown drones fly around airports and power plants.
And didn’t we learn from the internet that centralization is a bad thing? Nuclear power plants are exactly that.
Imagine a grid where every consumer is also a producer who can satisfy their energy needs at least partially for themselves even without the grid. Try to blackout that.
"And their power plants were in trouble in the last hot summer" - blatant lie. Cooling was fine, it's env protection law to avoid damaging the fauna(read - to not boil fish). Yet, it affects about 0.02% of annual generation and valid almost exclusively to NPP without cooling towers. Yet in those exact periods EDF was net exporting about 14GW to neighbors, again, data is public. French nukes can handle ppl's AC's just well, probably EDF even hopes for that to modulate their npp less and get more $
"And didn’t we learn from the internet that centralization is a bad thing? Nuclear power plants are exactly that." France has a combination of centralized and decentralized power - npp's are distributed around the country but each can generate a lot of power. Even more distribution and you start paying a ton for transmission lines and maintenance. That's the reason Germany started subsidizing them from this year, with about 6bn/y. Full decentralization is not a feature and you still can't achieve it since transmission system is centralized, prime example being recent cascade blackout in Spain.
"Imagine a grid where every consumer is also a producer who can satisfy their energy needs at least partially for themselves even without the grid. Try to blackout that." - that'll mean having to need a fully parallel grid for firming. Besides, a lot of home solar are grid followers - if there's a blackout, it'll shut down too unless you have a special invertor+bess which many dont have (yet)
"And that was before drone wars were a thing." - a drone would do nothing to a NPP. Even an airplane impact can be tolerated depending how new is the NPP.
1- not being able to cool reactors physically, which is false
2- being a major deal, when it affects only 0.2% of generation per year, during a period when EDF is net exporting about 14GW to the neighbors
3- being an unfixable issue, which is again false. The problem exista for reactors without cooling towers. EDF can fix it by building them. But there's no financial incentive here. Where would EDF sell extra power when export is already maximized in that same timeframe and market prices in summer are low?
Now you are being mean, or are engaging in discussions to spread misinformation
"And their power plants were in trouble in the last hot summer because the rivers were too hot to be used for cooling" - this does imply that cooling was not possible. You said nothing about the fact it's just a legal limit. Nor did you specify what/how many NPP exactly got modulated. Is "their" supposed to mean all? A bunch?
"And that will be a big problem when people turn on their AC in a heat wave but the power plants can’t power up because they don’t have enough cool water." - this implies it's both a major problem during heatwaves and/or that it's unfixable, both being false.
"> being a major deal, when it affects only 0.2% of generation per year
Interesting choice of time period. Energy problems are rarely viewed from a yearly perspective." - did you omit on purpose LITERALLY the following text "during a period when EDF is net exporting about 14GW to the neighbors" ? France is largest net exporter on the continent both yearly and in summer in particular. You are free to inspect energy charts data.
"That time and money can be used for decentralization." - french generation is already sufficiently decentralized. They can decentealize even more by building more plants across the country.
"Drones will get cheaper and cheaper and more capable and many nuclear power plants aren’t built for that threat" - nuclear plants are built or upgraded to withstand airplane impacts, a drone would barely scratch the outer reinforced concrete.
All your statements are either made on purpose to mislead (especially considering how you dismiss your own statements or omit crucial parts of text quoting me) or you are communicating your thoughts in a very unoptimal way...
When a cold spell hits France exports turn to imports.
Now EDF is crying about renewables lowering nuclear earning potential and increasing maintenance costs.
The problem is that they are up against economic incentives. Why should a company or person with solar and storage buy grid based nuclear power? They don’t.
Why should they not sell their excess to their neighbors? They do.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-02-16/edf-warns...