Eighteen of France’s 56 nuclear reactors were shut down for maintenance or repair on Thursday night, according to EDF data, ahead of a cooldown in temperatures in the coming days that raises fears of tensions in the power grid.
The 38 reactors in operation on Thursday provide 62.6% of French installed nuclear capacity, or 38.4 gigawatts (GW) of the 61.4 GW; Therefore, 37.4% of the energy was not available. A month ago, EDF planned to get further ahead of the restart of its reactors with 72.9% of available power.
Two reactors will restart on Friday and Saturday
But as with other reactors this fall, the relaunch of several units has been postponed, sometimes for a few days.
The number 3 reactor at the Dampierre power plant is due to restart on Friday morning, instead of Monday. Another reactor, Bugey 3, will be restarted on Saturday morning, bringing the number of unavailable reactors to 16 and increasing the number of operating reactors to 40 on Monday’s crucial day.
This Monday is the first day of autumn/winter for which the manager of high and very high voltage lines, RTE, could launch an orange “Ecowatt” alert, the first level which means that the supply will be “adjusted”.
This sign is used to call on the French, businesses and households to multiply ecological gestures to reduce their electricity consumption, in order to avoid load cuts or selective cuts. Mainly by reducing your heating or postponing your consumption (washing machine, etc.) outside the peak demand in the morning (8 a.m. to 1 p.m.) and in the afternoon around 7 p.m.
Source: BFM TV
