France Almost all of Spain during the next winter electric allowing existing interconnections Due to problems in the nuclear park, which did not recover as expected due to recent attacks at some facilities.
This is the diagnosis presented Tuesday by RTE, the manager of power grids in France, warning of the risk of supply to the country if strikes at nuclear power plants are prolonged.
RTE explains in its statement that this will have “strong consequences” in the middle of winter, but in the short term there is risk. Electricity supply will change from “very weak” to “medium” in the coming weeks..
French nuclear reactors provided 70% of the country’s electricity, but only 30 of the 56 reactors are currently in service. Due to months of maintenance work and corrosion problems detected in some of them, it forces them to import current, especially from Germany, Spain, England and Belgium.
this power outages EDF, which manages all of the country’s reactors, caused a delay of two to three weeks in reactivating some of them, questioning the Government’s program to the state company to increase nuclear production to 45 gigawatt hours in December and 50 in January, with a total capacity of 61.4 GW/H.
By November 1, nuclear reactors will produce 29 gigawatts, which will rise to 38 gigawatts a month later and 45 in January.According to RTE estimates.
To eliminate the shortcomings of nuclear energy, France plans to continue buying electricity Germany and from Spainfrom here we will “use the interconnection (with Spain) almost to the maximum”, as one responsible for RTE explained to questions from EFE.
This is because “Spain is a country without a supply problem”, Unlike in most European countries, and thanks to the so-called Iberian exception, which also benefits from Portugal, prices are much lower than in France.
Interconnection capacities between Spain and France are currently limited to 2,800 megawatts and are expected to increase to 5,000 megawatts by 2027, thanks to a new submarine line crossing the Bay of Biscay.
The Iberian exception, allowed by the European Commission, allows for a cap on the price of gas used to generate electricity. By contrast, futures prices in the wholesale market in France for the fourth quarter of 2022 and the first quarter of 2023 rose in a way that RTE considers “disproportionate”.
For the network administrator, these prices (over the €1,000 bar per megawatt hour) “represent an excessive risk premium.”