zlacker

>>Capsta+(OP)
> French day-ahead power fell to -€5.76 a megawatt-hour, the lowest in four years, in an auction on Epex Spot. Germany’s equivalent contract dropped to €7.64.

If true - how fast could a new transmission line from France to Germany pay for itself?

>>bell-c+Y
Germany already buys electricity from France. The cost mentioned above are the subsidized charges by the EDF to the french government.

Germans would get the full cost which is much higher than the quoted price here. Besides nuclear power is not flexible enough to amp it up and down according to demand (unlike coal or petrocarbon industries).

>>ganesh+U9
French reactors are built to load follow [1]. It is harder on the valves, but they do it ("maneuvering capabilities"). Regardless, it would be better if they could run flat out to push out fossil generation in adjacent grids (Germany, the UK, and Northern Italy) with sufficient interconnector capacity. France also still has a bit of coal and fossil gas generation to retire [2] [3].

TLDR More interconnector capacity, battery storage, and renewables needed (my analysis).

[1] https://www.oecd-nea.org/upload/docs/application/pdf/2021-12...

[2] https://app.electricitymaps.com/zone/FR?wind=false&solar=fal...

[3] https://www.euractiv.com/section/coal/news/france-extends-li...

>>toomuc+4a
Which theyve actually used very very rarely.

Nuclear reactors are already very cost ineffective when used as baseload. Theyre ridiculously cost ineffective when used for load following since it's basically curtailment.

This is why most countries tend to use gas or hydro/pumped storage for load following (or, increasingly, batteries as theyve been plummeting in price).

>>pydry+nb
> Nuclear reactors are already very cost ineffective when used as baseload.

Ontario, Canada would disagree with you: nuclear is 10.1¢/kWh, hydro is 6.2¢, (methane/natural) gas is 11.4¢; see Table 2:

* https://www.oeb.ca/sites/default/files/rpp-price-report-2023...

Of course hydro-electric dams typically flood many hectares of land for the reservoir. The current ones are getting refurbished:

* https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/niagara-ontario-power...

Ontario's nuclear fleet are also in the middle of a bunch of refurbs:

* https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/ontario-nuclear-power...

Some of which are finished:

* https://www.opg.com/releases/opg-celebrates-the-early-comple...

Live data on Ontario's grid:

* https://ieso.ca/power-data § "Supply" tab

>>throw0+Ig
Ontario's ultra-low-overnight time of use rates are 2.8c / kWh. Keeping the nuclear plants running overnight means they're losing 7 cents/kWh overnight. Better to shut those plants down overnight, but of course approximately all the nuclear costs are incurred whether the plants are running overnight or not, so shutting down overnight would just double the daytime costs.

>>bryanl+ti
> Ontario's ultra-low-overnight time of use rates are 2.8c / kWh.

And if you sign up for those ULO rates you also get 28.6¢ on-peak rates. The average over the entire day stays at 11.1¢ (see Table ES-2).

I guess they want to flatten the demand curve and reduce its cyclic nature: there's a cost to dealing with the traditional peaks times as well in various types of capacity.

>>throw0+UV1
Much of that cost is due to Ontario's high reliance on nuclear power.