3 ms·

Germany already buys electricity from France. The cost mentioned above are the subsidized charges by the EDF to the french government. Germans would get the fu

Germany already buys electricity from France. The cost mentioned above are the subsidized charges by the EDF to the french government. Germans would get the full cost which is much higher than the quoted price here. Besides nuclear power is not flexible enough to amp it up and down according to demand (unlike coal or petrocarbon industries).

toomuchtodo 2y ago
French reactors are built to load follow [1]. It is harder on the valves, but they do it ("maneuvering capabilities"). Regardless, it would be better if they could run flat out to push out fossil generation in adjacent grids (Germany, the UK, and Northern Italy) with sufficient interconnector capacity. France also still has a bit of coal and fossil gas generation to retire [2] [3]. TLDR More interconnector capacity, battery storage, and renewables needed (my analysis). [1] https://www.oecd-nea.org/upload/docs/application/pdf/2021-12/technical_and_economic_aspects_of_load_following_with_nuclear_power_plants.pdf https://www.oecd-nea.org/upload/docs/application/pdf/2021-12... [2] https://app.electricitymaps.com/zone/FR?wind=false&solar=false https://app.electricitymaps.com/zone/FR?wind=false&solar=fal... [3] https://www.euractiv.com/section/coal/news/france-extends-life-of-last-coal-fired-plants-to-avoid-winter-shortfalls/ https://www.euractiv.com/section/coal/news/france-extends-li...
- pydry 2y ago
  Which theyve actually used very very rarely. Nuclear reactors are already very cost ineffective when used as baseload. Theyre ridiculously cost ineffective when used for load following since it's basically curtailment. This is why most countries tend to use gas or hydro/pumped storage for load following (or, increasingly, batteries as theyve been plummeting in price).
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - orwin 2y ago
    It's untrue, it is used everyday on all our Gen3/Gen3+ reactors (our Gen2 are able to do it too, but it does cost a lot as core monitoring is more costly for them) I've found this https://www.oecd-nea.org/nea-news/2011/29-2/aen-infos-suivi-charge-29-2.pdf https://www.oecd-nea.org/nea-news/2011/29-2/aen-infos-suivi-... even if it isn't really clear, you have a graph that show you a typical year on a french reactor, and load followinf the german reactors used to do over a day.
  - throw0101c 2y ago
    > Nuclear reactors are already very cost ineffective when used as baseload. Ontario, Canada would disagree with you: nuclear is 10.1¢/kWh, hydro is 6.2¢, (methane/natural) gas is 11.4¢; see Table 2: * https://www.oeb.ca/sites/default/files/rpp-price-report-20231019.pdf https://www.oeb.ca/sites/default/files/rpp-price-report-2023... Of course hydro-electric dams typically flood many hectares of land for the reservoir. The current ones are getting refurbished: * https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/niagara-ontario-power-generation-sir-adam-beck-refurbish-1.7174267 https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/niagara-ontario-power... Ontario's nuclear fleet are also in the middle of a bunch of refurbs: * https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/ontario-nuclear-power-pickering-refurbishment-electricity-1.7098524 https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/ontario-nuclear-power... Some of which are finished: * https://www.opg.com/releases/opg-celebrates-the-early-completion-of-darlington-unit-3/ https://www.opg.com/releases/opg-celebrates-the-early-comple... Live data on Ontario's grid: * https://ieso.ca/power-data https://ieso.ca/power-data § "Supply" tab
    - bryanlarsen 2y ago
      Ontario's ultra-low-overnight time of use rates are 2.8c / kWh. Keeping the nuclear plants running overnight means they're losing 7 cents/kWh overnight. Better to shut those plants down overnight, but of course approximately all the nuclear costs are incurred whether the plants are running overnight or not, so shutting down overnight would just double the daytime costs.
      - throw0101c 2y ago
        > Ontario's ultra-low-overnight time of use rates are 2.8c / kWh. And if you sign up for those ULO rates you also get 28.6¢ on-peak rates. The average over the entire day stays at 11.1¢ (see Table ES-2). I guess they want to flatten the demand curve and reduce its cyclic nature: there's a cost to dealing with the traditional peaks times as well in various types of capacity.
        bryanlarsen 2y ago
        Much of that cost is due to Ontario's high reliance on nuclear power.
- stkdump 2y ago
  It is likely that the times where French renewables flood the market roughly coincide with the times where German renewables flood the market, which where 60% of the supply even in the winter. The few remaining times where that isn't the case are probably not relevant. I mean every bit helps of equalizing over a larger area can help, but we likely need interconnects with places that are a bit farther away than France like Spain and Norway so the gaps are more likely to fall into different times. Besides, coal plants are almost as bad in spinning up and down quickly as nuclear plants. In both cases they can probably do somewhat it to escape the penalty of negative prices, but likely they don't safe much if anything in terms of operational costs and fuel.
  - toomuchtodo 2y ago
    Spain is awash in clean energy from renewables [1] and has large interconnect capabilities with Portugal (~5GW). Between both countries [2] [3], they operate very close to ~90% low carbon most of the time. Spain's last coal fired generator retires in August 2024 [4]. We must push east with low carbon power, as that is where the dirty grids are (see live ElectricityMaps app map scoped to Europe for context). [1] https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/czkkgnp1d2xo https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/czkkgnp1d2xo [2] https://app.electricitymaps.com/zone/ES?wind=false&solar=false https://app.electricitymaps.com/zone/ES?wind=false&solar=fal... [3] https://app.electricitymaps.com/zone/PT?wind=false&solar=false https://app.electricitymaps.com/zone/PT?wind=false&solar=fal... [4] https://www.gem.wiki/As_Pontes_power_station https://www.gem.wiki/As_Pontes_power_station
    - stkdump 2y ago
      Right, move Spains clean energy east, this is what I said. Also move Norways clean energy south.
  - toast0 2y ago
    Spain is adjacent to France, just like Germany; not sure it's farther away :P But the way these networks work, you can often build up the interconnects where there's a pricing/availability disparity, and pretty soon you have a vast interconnect. Because if Germany's grid pricing benefits from relatively unconstrained interconnection with France, there's going to be a pricing disparity at Germany's other borders. Of course, grid borders don't necessarily reflect national borders, and national interconnection projects have to happen too. That said, the top 5 countries by peak load in wikipedia are France, Germany, UK, Italy, and Spain, which are all either France or neighbors of France. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synchronous_grid_of_Continental_Europe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synchronous_grid_of_Continenta...

toomuchtodo 2y ago

French reactors are built to load follow [1]. It is harder on the valves, but they do it ("maneuvering capabilities"). Regardless, it would be better if they could run flat out to push out fossil generation in adjacent grids (Germany, the UK, and Northern Italy) with sufficient interconnector capacity. France also still has a bit of coal and fossil gas generation to retire [2] [3]. TLDR More interconnector capacity, battery storage, and renewables needed (my analysis). [1] https://www.oecd-nea.org/upload/docs/application/pdf/2021-12/technical_and_economic_aspects_of_load_following_with_nuclear_power_plants.pdf https://www.oecd-nea.org/upload/docs/application/pdf/2021-12... [2] https://app.electricitymaps.com/zone/FR?wind=false&solar=false https://app.electricitymaps.com/zone/FR?wind=false&solar=fal... [3] https://www.euractiv.com/section/coal/news/france-extends-life-of-last-coal-fired-plants-to-avoid-winter-shortfalls/ https://www.euractiv.com/section/coal/news/france-extends-li...

pydry 2y ago
Which theyve actually used very very rarely. Nuclear reactors are already very cost ineffective when used as baseload. Theyre ridiculously cost ineffective when used for load following since it's basically curtailment. This is why most countries tend to use gas or hydro/pumped storage for load following (or, increasingly, batteries as theyve been plummeting in price).
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- orwin 2y ago
  It's untrue, it is used everyday on all our Gen3/Gen3+ reactors (our Gen2 are able to do it too, but it does cost a lot as core monitoring is more costly for them) I've found this https://www.oecd-nea.org/nea-news/2011/29-2/aen-infos-suivi-charge-29-2.pdf https://www.oecd-nea.org/nea-news/2011/29-2/aen-infos-suivi-... even if it isn't really clear, you have a graph that show you a typical year on a french reactor, and load followinf the german reactors used to do over a day.
- throw0101c 2y ago
  > Nuclear reactors are already very cost ineffective when used as baseload. Ontario, Canada would disagree with you: nuclear is 10.1¢/kWh, hydro is 6.2¢, (methane/natural) gas is 11.4¢; see Table 2: * https://www.oeb.ca/sites/default/files/rpp-price-report-20231019.pdf https://www.oeb.ca/sites/default/files/rpp-price-report-2023... Of course hydro-electric dams typically flood many hectares of land for the reservoir. The current ones are getting refurbished: * https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/niagara-ontario-power-generation-sir-adam-beck-refurbish-1.7174267 https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/niagara-ontario-power... Ontario's nuclear fleet are also in the middle of a bunch of refurbs: * https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/ontario-nuclear-power-pickering-refurbishment-electricity-1.7098524 https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/ontario-nuclear-power... Some of which are finished: * https://www.opg.com/releases/opg-celebrates-the-early-completion-of-darlington-unit-3/ https://www.opg.com/releases/opg-celebrates-the-early-comple... Live data on Ontario's grid: * https://ieso.ca/power-data https://ieso.ca/power-data § "Supply" tab
  - bryanlarsen 2y ago
    Ontario's ultra-low-overnight time of use rates are 2.8c / kWh. Keeping the nuclear plants running overnight means they're losing 7 cents/kWh overnight. Better to shut those plants down overnight, but of course approximately all the nuclear costs are incurred whether the plants are running overnight or not, so shutting down overnight would just double the daytime costs.
    - throw0101c 2y ago
      > Ontario's ultra-low-overnight time of use rates are 2.8c / kWh. And if you sign up for those ULO rates you also get 28.6¢ on-peak rates. The average over the entire day stays at 11.1¢ (see Table ES-2). I guess they want to flatten the demand curve and reduce its cyclic nature: there's a cost to dealing with the traditional peaks times as well in various types of capacity.
      - bryanlarsen 2y ago
        Much of that cost is due to Ontario's high reliance on nuclear power.
stkdump 2y ago
It is likely that the times where French renewables flood the market roughly coincide with the times where German renewables flood the market, which where 60% of the supply even in the winter. The few remaining times where that isn't the case are probably not relevant. I mean every bit helps of equalizing over a larger area can help, but we likely need interconnects with places that are a bit farther away than France like Spain and Norway so the gaps are more likely to fall into different times. Besides, coal plants are almost as bad in spinning up and down quickly as nuclear plants. In both cases they can probably do somewhat it to escape the penalty of negative prices, but likely they don't safe much if anything in terms of operational costs and fuel.
- toomuchtodo 2y ago
  Spain is awash in clean energy from renewables [1] and has large interconnect capabilities with Portugal (~5GW). Between both countries [2] [3], they operate very close to ~90% low carbon most of the time. Spain's last coal fired generator retires in August 2024 [4]. We must push east with low carbon power, as that is where the dirty grids are (see live ElectricityMaps app map scoped to Europe for context). [1] https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/czkkgnp1d2xo https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/czkkgnp1d2xo [2] https://app.electricitymaps.com/zone/ES?wind=false&solar=false https://app.electricitymaps.com/zone/ES?wind=false&solar=fal... [3] https://app.electricitymaps.com/zone/PT?wind=false&solar=false https://app.electricitymaps.com/zone/PT?wind=false&solar=fal... [4] https://www.gem.wiki/As_Pontes_power_station https://www.gem.wiki/As_Pontes_power_station
  - stkdump 2y ago
    Right, move Spains clean energy east, this is what I said. Also move Norways clean energy south.
- toast0 2y ago
  Spain is adjacent to France, just like Germany; not sure it's farther away :P But the way these networks work, you can often build up the interconnects where there's a pricing/availability disparity, and pretty soon you have a vast interconnect. Because if Germany's grid pricing benefits from relatively unconstrained interconnection with France, there's going to be a pricing disparity at Germany's other borders. Of course, grid borders don't necessarily reflect national borders, and national interconnection projects have to happen too. That said, the top 5 countries by peak load in wikipedia are France, Germany, UK, Italy, and Spain, which are all either France or neighbors of France. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synchronous_grid_of_Continental_Europe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synchronous_grid_of_Continenta...