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Stop touting "Germany buys electricity from France because they don't have nuclear power". France always exported electricity because they cannot power their nu
by foepys 9y ago
Stop touting "Germany buys electricity from France because they don't have nuclear power". France always exported electricity because they cannot power their nuclear power plants up and down as easy as others can their coal plants. In hot summers and cold winters France relies on Germany electricity to stabilize their net because nuclear power then becomes a problem.
- xaldir 9y agoIt is possible to power up and down nuclear power plants, it is however very inefficient. And when you have neighbors wanting to buy your surplus electricity and a grid that support it, why bother? France and other countries (like Switzerland) import electricity from time to time not because they are unable to produce it, but because it's cheaper to do so. Germany on the other hand have to import electricity when there not enough wind/sun and their coal plant are already maxed-out.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- rndgermandude 9y agoFrance in recent years relied on energy imports during winters, because they heat a lot with electricity[1], and e.g. in 2015 they had to temporarily shut down a lot of their nuclear plants due to "quality concerns"[2], tho that was not the first time other European nations had to save them from going dark. Germany mostly has a positive import rate (importing more than exporting) during the summer mornings and evenings, mostly because it's less windy in summers, it's dark so no solar, foreign surplus energy is readily available and cheap so that it doesn't make sense to increase hard coal energy production for a few hours each. But the coal plants are far from maxed out, and Germany does not rely on imports. E.g. during summer mornings when Germany imports about 4 GW to make up for lack of wind and solar, the hard coal plants produce 4-12 GW, meaning to avoid those imports you'd have to run them at 8-16 GW. Those plants alone can produce 19 GW easily, and that's just hard coal. If you like playing with interactive charts about energy production in Germany and the import/export rate, Fraunhofer ISE offers https://www.energy-charts.de/ https://www.energy-charts.de/ PS: Since 2006 up until now, Germany had a negative annual import rate (more exports than imports)[3]. And the last month Germany imported (not necessarily had to import) more energy than exported was September 2011. [1] https://energytransition.org/2017/01/france-cant-meet-its-own-power-demand/ https://energytransition.org/2017/01/france-cant-meet-its-ow... [2] http://www.powermag.com/frances-nuclear-storm-many-power-plants-down-due-to-quality-concerns/ http://www.powermag.com/frances-nuclear-storm-many-power-pla... [3] https://www.energy-charts.de/energy.htm?source=all-sources&period=annual&year=all https://www.energy-charts.de/energy.htm?source=all-sources&p... and make sure to enable the Import stuff in the graphs
- blau3 9y agoCoal plants in Germany have the same problem as elsewhere: They are becoming too expensive. Renwable power in Germany is mostly a mix of solar and wind energy. In the summer, the curve of solar production fits nicely the daytime of the highest demand, while the higher production of wind energy is in cold stormy winter months. What needs to complement the mix are gas power plants which can be ramped up and down quickly. Coal plants are too slow for that.
- oh_sigh 9y agoYou could always smelt aluminium, pump water uphill, or simply boil some water etc with the excess power. Excess production is a far smaller problem than lacking production - so please don't try to play this off as Germany doing France a solid on this front.
- mjevans 9y agoIf you have a hydrogen fuel economy as well the excess could be used for electrolysis, or any other form for storing energy potential for a future date.
- logfromblammo 9y agoOr synthesize methane with Sabatier rxn and pipe it to storage tanks at peaker plants.
- saagarjha 9y agoForgive if I'm wrong, but isn't nuclear power always used for base load? Why would France have excess nuclear energy at all?
- fyfy18 9y agoTypically you want to keep nuclear plants running at full power all the time, as most of the costs are fixed or sunk, independent of the electricity output. Most countries use nuclear power just to generate a small fraction of their electricity, so can do this without issue. However over 90% of France’s generating capacity is from nuclear power, so during low demand times there is a lot of excess. They do actually shutdown some reactors during weekends, but it’s better if they can sell the electricity cheaply to their neighbours, who can then avoid running some of their gas or coal plants - so it’s a win-win for everyone.
- saagarjha 9y ago> over 90% of France’s generating capacity is from nuclear power I knew France used nuclear power, but I didn't realize they relied on it so heavily. Yes, in this case they'd get more excess since they're running above base load.
- seanmcdirmid 9y agoDo they really shut the reactors down during the weekends? My dad worked in nuclear, and the plant would be down for a few days if it ever tripped, planned outages were about two weeks.
- mjevans 9y agoI am not a nuclear engineer; however a /trip/ (forced sudden shutdown) is probably different from a planned standby of some sort.
- seanmcdirmid 9y agoUsually they are false alarms due to lightning strikes messing up sensor equipments. But ya, probably a bit harsher than a planned shutdown.