France risks facing severe electricity shortages in early 2023 due to repairs to nuclear power plants (NPPs). One of the largest energy companies in the republic, RTE, claims that the repair of the nuclear power plant will take longer than expected, and this, in turn, may lead to power outages in the country. This is reported by Bloomberg with reference to the RTE report.
There is some good news for French consumers as warm weather led to a significant decline in consumption in November, a positive trend likely to continue into part of December, avoiding disruption before the new year.
“The situation looks less risky in December and since the end of February, but January now contains more risks than in the previous analysis,” the French company said in a report.
France was hostage to a large-scale repair of its nuclear power plants in 2022. Usually, the agency recalls, the capacity of reactors is more than enough for domestic consumption, moreover, until 2022, France was an exporter of electricity to other countries. Now the French authorities are asking citizens and businesses to reduce consumption and save in every possible way to avoid interruptions. Particularly active savings will have to be made in January, since some of the reactors will not be able to start up at the previously appointed time.
The network operator has even developed a contingency plan called Ecowatt, which aims to sharply reduce consumption three days before the peak of the shortage. RTE expects that such measures will be enough to pass the heating season relatively smoothly in January, and in February the company expects the situation to stabilize against the backdrop of warming and the resumption of nuclear power plants.
Currently, only 31 out of 56 nuclear reactors are operating in France, which produce 31 gigawatts of electricity. Until the end of 2022, the authorities expected to launch 15 additional rectors, and at the beginning of 2023 they planned to launch 10 more, but they failed to meet the deadline. In addition, some installations will have to be stopped for diagnostics and scheduled repairs, which will also make adjustments to the local energy market. RTE expects to generate about 40 gigawatts of nuclear power early next year amid possible delays in restarting reactors, about 3 to 4 gigawatts lower than the company originally forecast.
The war in Ukraine hit the energy stability of Europe: Russia cut gas supplies to the continent because of Brussels' support for Ukraine, although the Kremlin regularly claimed that they could not increase supplies due to sanctions. After the sabotage on the Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 gas pipelines, these conversations subsided, but Europe managed to quickly find alternatives to Russian gas in 2022. The main problems await the EU in 2023.