(Maybe not)Fiction: SINKING EDF CUTS OFF POWER TO FREEZING LONDON TO SAVE PARIS
France is the weak link in European energy
4 December 2022. Paris, London. With the cold and stormy conditions persisting across Norther Europe, the energy crisis is reaching a new high after EDF was forced to brutally interrupt deliveries yesterday to all neighbors, as well as a number of industrial parties and regional hubs, triggering blackouts in the UK and furious reactions in that country from politicians and media alike as London and a wider area in the South East of England was cut off for 90 minutes in the early evening before National Grid could restore full service.
"EDF betrays its UK customers on order of French government - Liz Truss recalls ambassador in Paris"
"UK to consider temporary ban on exports of electricity or gas to Europe"
"Italy reminds France of its contractual obligations to deliver power and wants that it will not be treated as 'second class citizens' "
The French company has struggled with strong demand, at 95 GW, and has had to resort to such desperate measures despite high levels of imports from Germany and record wind production. With 15 nuclear reactors (out of 56) still offline, net generation from its aging fleet nevertheless reached 51 GW, the highest this year, (compared to a maximum of 63 GW), with hydro also limited to 10 GW (compared to a theoretical max of 15 GW) and the wind sector providing a record 12 GW of production throughout the day, EDF has been forced to rely on a combination of gas-and coal-fired generation (close to 8 GW) and imports (almost 15 GW), at prices that have reached new records every day of the past week, and currently stand at 1,600 EUR/MWh, 40 times the normal price.
The bill for the company, on the basis of the current average of 20 GW of gas+power purchases on an ongoing basis, is reaching the incredible amount of 750 million euros per day.
But event that was not sufficient yesterday evening, as temperatures dropped to a low of -1°C in Paris and demand reached its daily peak, and EDF decided to cut off the residual 1 GW of deliveries it was still making to the UK and Italy, and organize rolling brownouts in Brittany and the South East, the two weakest regions of the French network in order to preserve deliveries to the rest of France and in particular to the Paris area.
"German politicians question burning of scarce gas reserves to export power outside country"
"Gas storage reaches record low for that time of the year, despite being full at the end of autumn"
"French trade deficit reaches record monthly high of 25 billion euros in November on high energy imports - on course to reach 150 billions euros for the year"
The howls from Britain and elsewhere are the lesser of EDF's problems, as it faces financial ruin (to an extent which is becoming a macro-economic issue for the country), and struggles to physically provide electricity to its clinets.
France relies increasingly heavily on neighbors who need to run their gas-fired and coal-fired plants at full power to manage both their own high demand and EDF’s requirement for imports. They have been able, so far, to count on record wind production levels (averaging 45 GW in Germany currently and close to 20 GW in the UK) to manage their systems. France has shared its ample gas storage capacity (and LNG import capacity) with Germany to the fullest extent allowed by existing infrastructure, with gas deliveries that usually run towards the West going into reverse, as German storage capacity is being drained at a record pace in the face of high demand and continued reduced deliveries from Russia.
Each day at temperatures similar or lower than yesterday, or with less wind than the current stormy conditions across much of Norther Europe, could trigger a worse situation for France and thus its neighbors. Thankfully, weather analysts currently expect the temperatures to increase again before wind goes down, given some breathing space to Europe's strained electricity systems.
Despite EDF being able to bring back on line most of the nuclear plants that had been on scheduled maintenance this summer, the ASN (the French nuclear regulator) still has not allowed the Civaux, Chooz and Penly plants, the largest of the EDF fleet at 1,500 MW each to restart, following corrosion issues in the main backup system. Pressure is increasing to allow them to be restarted even with the weakness remaining, but the trade-off between safety and production is not made explicit by the politicians (mostly on the extremes) calling for step to be taken, as they try to blame an over-punctilious regulator.
Lower than usual rain throughout 2022, despite the recent downpours, has kept hydropower unusually low this year. Even with the existing coal and gas-fired plants producing again at full capacity, France's traditional winter peak-time deficit has been made all the larger by those missing 15 GW of nuclear. The country has been lucky to see a high level of production from wind power in recent weeks, and to have neighbors with larger wind fleets whose renewable generation was boosted - in fact France was importing power from the UK until a few days ago, but the lower temperatures increased demand in the UK to the point where the British system had once again to call on French imports, despite wind generation hovering close to its maximum ever of 20 GW range on a regular basis.
"French politicians call for unsafe plants to be restarted"
"North Sea wind bonanza saves UK from the worst"
This week's condition were not especially harsh as far as winters go (France record peak demand was 102 GW in February 2012), which shows that this crisis could be the first of many, if temperatures reach the “normal” coldest point of the winter (about 2° lower than current conditions), and wind conditions are less favorable - cold snaps in winter are more often associated with low winds than not, in that respect, this week's situation is thus 'lucky'.
A record 2.5 GW of interruptible demand was triggered yesterday - this is likely to happen increasingly often, causing doubts about the viability of these industrial activities in France. Conversely, the (now usual) calls for lower consumption in Brittany and the South East help shave 0.5 GW from peak demand before the blackouts were imposed - it seems natural that similar efforts should be asked of all French citizens from now on, as the whole country is in a weak network area...
Consumers so far have been protected from the price impact of the crisis, but can this go on if EDF stands to have losses beyond 10 billion euros per month (ultimately the French will pay, whether as consumers or taxpayers), and can deliveries be maintained without recourse to harsher measures like rolling blackouts?
The time of reckoning for France’s nuclear industry has come.
Dear Jérôme,
Of course, I would have concluded the story with a typical:
"Any resemblance to situations that exist or have existed is entirely coincidental"
As we all wish the best to the French and European power system
DOOMSDAY Scenario, probably not so unrealistic...