France, Europe's largest electricity exporter, is likely to import electricity from its neighbors this winter because its largest electricity supplier is in the midst of heavy equipment maintenance and overhaul tasks.
Electricite de France Sa, the largest electricity producer in France, lowered its nuclear power production target for the third time this year, reducing its annual target from 295315 TWH (one TWH is 1 billion KWH) to 280300 TWH.
After the company adjusted its target, the electricity contract price in France increased by 8.6% in the fourth quarter. At present, the electricity price in France is the highest level in Europe, and the contract price in the same period is almost twice that in Germany.
The grey part is the past price and the yellow part is the futures price.
Over the past few decades, Electricite de France Sa has been playing the role of the pillar of the European integrated power system, supplying power to Western Europe.
Since the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, oil and natural gas prices have soared, and Europe is deeply in high inflation. The reduction of electric de France Sa nuclear power production will be another blow to European energy security.
The company had previously warned that rising river temperatures could cut nuclear power production, this time because of "stress corrosion". The company said it was aware that stress corrosion problems in some reactors would require more inspection and maintenance.
Regis clement, deputy director of the company's nuclear department, said: "we have fine tuned the maintenance to be carried out. We must cut more pipes for further maintenance."
At present, about half of Electricite de France Sa's 56 reactors are shut down. Some of them are due to regular maintenance or refueling, not long-term stop. However, at the end of last year, after the company found the problem of stress corrosion, more than a dozen were stopped for inspection and maintenance. At that time, it was confirmed that cracks appeared in the key pipelines of four reactors.
Clement further stated that newer reactors appear to be the most affected because some of their piping designs are longer and more complex. Cracks often appear at the weld very close to the pipe elbow, which may be caused by the vortex formed by hot and cold water, or it may be due to the improper completion of the weld.
He said the company would repair as many nuclear reactors as possible by next winter and inspect other devices during planned maintenance shutdowns by the end of next year. But he also admitted that the maintenance of civaux 1 and penly 1 (two nuclear reactors) pipelines would be a heavy task.
So far, the power company has said it does not need to schedule additional reactor outages for inspection this year.
However, the decommissioned reactor will cause a shortage of power supply in France this winter, which will shift France from an electricity exporter to importing electricity from its neighbors.
Emeric de Vigan, CEO of cor-e, a French energy analysis company, believes that the biggest test will appear when the temperature begins to drop at the end of this year. It doesn't take many days of cold weather to endanger France's power supply.
"Nuclear availability is so bad that if the temperature in winter is 2 degrees Celsius lower than that in normal years, we will have problems in a few days and the power will be very tight."
He said that allowing consumers and factories to reduce energy consumption would be measures that might need to be taken.
