France is deep in an energy crisis due to the decommissioning of many nuclear reactors. The effects will extend well into next year: France, as Europe’s largest net electricity exporter, will now have to import electricity.
The timing could not have been worse when French nuclear giant EDF warned in May of reduced nuclear power production this year after half of its reactors were shut down. Traditionally, France is the largest net exporter of electricity in Europe thanks to its nuclear industry.
Now that the continent is facing an energy crisis, the shutdowns will make the country a net importer of electricity for the first time. Then, when EDF announced in September that even in 2024, production would still be well below normal levels, the dilemma turned into an embarrassment for the entire country.
Current concerns in France’s nuclear industry stem in part from the routine maintenance of the country’s 56 nuclear power plants, half of which have been in operation for around 40 years. Every aging reactor must be taken off the grid at regular intervals for inspection. In the course of the pandemic-related lockdowns, this scheduled maintenance work was interrupted.
However, things got really critical when corrosion problems arose in a pressurized water reactor at the end of 2021. By September of this year, no fewer than 25 power plants had failed, ten of which were due to routine maintenance and the rest due to corrosion analysis or repairs.
The uncomfortable truth, however, is that France’s nuclear problem is homegrown. The French have always been proud of the independence of their nuclear fleet, which covers 69 percent of the country’s electricity needs. However, after the Fukushima reactor disaster in 2011 and lobbying by French anti-nuclear movements and Greens, nuclear power went out of fashion.
In 2012, the socialist François Hollande successfully campaigned for the presidency with the election promise to reduce the share of nuclear energy in electricity generation to 50 percent – this goal was anchored in law in 2015. At the same time, he promised to shut down the country’s two oldest nuclear power plants, at Fessenheim, while the only new reactor under construction at the time, at Flamanville, was uncompleted (and still uncompleted).
It was only this February that his successor, Emmanuel Macron, resolutely switched to nuclear energy in view of the low-carbon economic model he was aiming for. As part of an energy strategy based on the resumption of nuclear power and the expansion of renewable energies, Macron announced the construction of six new-generation reactors in France – with a possible eight more to follow by 2050.
With the change came confidence in a demoralized sector. However, it will still be many years before the new nuclear power plants go online.
Industry bosses and politicians blame each other for this. In August, outgoing EDF chief Jean-Bernard Lévy blamed the French government’s decade-long shutdown policy for the industry’s deficit in recruiting and training nuclear specialists. Macron dismissed this accusation as “wrong and irresponsible”.
Either way, “decisions were either not taken or made too late,” says Cécile Maisonneuve, an energy specialist at the French Institute for International Relations, “and this has put Europe in serious trouble.”
In the long run, France will be able to revive its industry. EDF has retained its expertise in the UK in particular: the company is currently building reactors at Hinkley Point, with two more planned for Sizewell. In the short term, however, France is facing a winter of “heightened tensions”, according to the electricity grid regulator RTE.
Meanwhile, EDF pledged to restart all decommissioned nuclear power plants by February. With the government fully nationalizing the energy company, no delays should be tolerated. Nonetheless, RTE forecasts a drop in nuclear power capacity of around one-fifth by the end of February compared to last year’s level. A difficult scenario is emerging for France and Europe – and not just next year.
The article first appeared in The Economist entitled “France’s nuclear reactors will not work as normal any time soon” and was translated by Cornelia Zink.
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The article “France’s energy muddle has bitter consequences for Europe too” comes from The Economist.
