франция, 95% электричества

[juan_gandhi]

 I've just learned that in 2024 95% of electricity produced in France is carbon-free. It's nuclear, fyi.

Comments

[mopexod]

On a scale of France these are not spikes but rather a normal daily cycle with a well predicted hour-to-hour variations.
Considering that France was ~70% nuclear for the last decades, they know how to deal with this.

[sassa_nf]

I don't know enough, I can only retell what my friend from a nuclear power plant told me, and what I read about the future of the power supply.

One might wonder why 70% remains 70% for decades.

I understand nukes can cope with seasonal changes in demand, but not so much with daily variations. They are good as a backbone, but not so good for coping with variation.

[mopexod]

If we take a look at actual electricity consumption of France, we see daily variations of ~25-30% :
https://www.rte-france.com/en/eco2mix/electricity-consumption-france

This may explain 70% level of nuclear power generation: it does not require any throttling during a typical day, if other ways of generation can be easily adjusted.

I thought that daily variation is a lot lower.

[sassa_nf]

That's a cool graph, thanks.

I am actually surprised that the consumption low is 3.45am, and up to that time it remains pretty high, like the French don't sleep much.