Yes, neither nuclear nor offshore wind exactly match the demand profile so some kind of storage/demand-response/complementary generation assets etc. is required.
Offshore wind does peak in winter along with European demand, nuclear similarly schedules its maintenance and refueling for the summer which helps but both will almost certainly overproduce relative to current demand during the night on a predictable daily schedule if rolled out to any great extent so lithium batteries (in EVs or otherwise) do a lot to integrate their power over the short term as well as the TOU rates France has used for decades to make the most of nuclear power.
> EDF advises “The Heures Pleines option will suit you especially if you want to take advantage of price per kWh at the most advantageous to the day (ie 8 hours daily peak)”. Basically if you have a night-storage electric water heater, or storage radiators, then you would be best to choose this option, which provides off peak electricity rates to heat your appliances. See peak and off-peak rates on the EDF website.
> Yes, neither nuclear nor offshore wind exactly match the demand profile so some kind of storage/demand-response/complementary generation assets etc. is required.
Nuclear doesn't require storage, it can adapt to evolving demand [1]. I really don't know why people keep repeating that specific misinformation.
> as well as the TOU rates France has used for decades to make the most of nuclear power.
These contracts (heures creuses) are a legacy of the past, they are designed to be uncompetitive compared to the default rate.
I'm talking about an economically viable system, not a theoretical one where money doesn't matter.
That's why France is at 75% nuclear and uses hydro and gas to fill in and exports power regularly (at least they did when their nuclear plants were all running).
You can theoretically go 100% wind if you just build enough of it. No one is doing that because there are better, cheaper options by complementing it with other zero carbon options including storage and transmission.
> I'm talking about an economically viable system, not a theoretical one where money doesn't matter.
Dude, I just gave you an article written by EDF engineers to provide feedback on how plants actually work, it's not a theoretical analysis. Nuclear plants don't depend on alternative sources, and they don't need to export, simply because they regulate their output based on demand.
> No one is doing that because there are better, cheaper options by complementing it with other zero carbon options including storage and transmission.
Currently, no one is running a country-level grid on renewables alone using storage and transmission. The backup is, so far, always a high-carbon power source.
> The economic consequences of load-following are
mainly related to the reduction of the load factor.
In the case of nuclear energy, fuel costs represent
a small fraction of the electricity generating cost,
especially compared to fossile sources. Thus, oper-
ating at higher load factors is profitable for nuclear
power plants as they cannot make savings on fuel
costs while not producing electricity.
Coal and nuclear are bad at this, that's why they are traditionally "baseload" and other techs are used to complement their strengths and weaknesses to get an economic total grid system.
> neither nuclear nor offshore wind exactly match the demand profile so some kind of storage/demand-response/complementary generation assets etc. is required.
There is no requirement to adapt demand for nuclear, and even though the availability of zero-cost storage could theoretically improve nuclear's cost-effectiveness, in reality, the cost of storage is greater than potential gains from running nuclear 24/7.
> that's why they are traditionally "baseload"
The article I provided states, quote:
> Nuclear power plants in France and Germany operate in load-following mode. They participate in the primary and secondary frequency control, and some units follow a variable load programme with one or two large power changes per day.
Right after the snippet you quoted, the following sentence is written:
> In France, the impact of load-following on the average unit capacity factor is sometimes estimated at about 1.2%.
Maybe you should stop making partial quotes to support repeating lies?
Your paper says that nuclear has some limited load following abilities. I know that is true and never intended to imply it didn't.
You appear to be claiming this means that no storage/batteries are required for nuclear grids, but they are for renewables.
This is as true for nuclear as it is for renewables. If you build enough to cover the peakiest peaks then you never have to use any storage.
It would be an interesting math exercise to see whether a stupidly all nuclear grid or a stupidly all renewable grid would cost more. I'd suggest renewables would very easily win this battle, but I've not seen anyone do the numbers, because both are stupidly expensive things to do and no one has any plans to do either for real.
What people with actual nuclear on their grids have done traditionally is:
Differing rates to encourage the demand to match nuclear production better.
Storage, generally pumped hydro which uses nuclear electricity when it is cheap and then releases it later during spikes.
Export/import to neighbours (some of whom may use it for pumped hydro, like Switzerland does with French nuclear)
Have other elements on the grid, like France's 15% gas plants, or hydro to fill in the gaps.
And in the future people will do the exact same things, except they'll use wind and solar instead of nuclear because they are much cheaper. And they'll use more lithium batteries, again because those are cheaper now. And the gas they burn will transition to hydrogen.
You should read the article I linked to, it has lots of details about how the French are in denial about this incoming reality from a Frenchman with an easily found track record on supporting nuclear and commenting on the energy industry. As he says, they are having problems now, because they were mostly correct for so long in the past, and that makes it harder for them to cope with being wrong now.
> Your paper says that nuclear has some limited load following abilities.
Load following requirements aren't determined by the plant operator, they're determined by the grid operator, and they're the same for every controllable output source. So far, nuclear plants fully comply with the european grid requirements.
> You appear to be claiming this means that no storage/batteries are required for nuclear grids
Well, yes, that's what I'm saying, and that's what the article says.
> It would be an interesting math exercise
It's not an interesting math exercise, it's the very nature of the problem. You keep ignoring that just because it is convenient to pretend a 55€/MWh nuclear plant is equivalent to a 44€/installed MWh wind farm.
In reality, building wind farms or PV farms create external dependencies. These dependencies are absorbed without too much of a cost when your grid massively depends on gas.
The rest of your message simply denies this reality because it doesn't align with your belief.
> it has lots of details about how the French are in denial about this incoming reality
IDK what you think the article says. It talks about the failure from political leadership to provide certainty about the future of power in France, and, as a consequence, the fact that nothing has been done in the last two decades to prepare our future production means. It's been well known for a while now, and the crisis means the penny had dropped for everyone at the time the article was written.
It is completely unrelated to nuclear plants ; had we had gas plants instead, our politicians would have made the same mistake.
> Well, yes, that's what I'm saying, and that's what the article says.
No, it doesn't. They'd love to be able to say that. The reason they don't say it loudly and clearly is because it's not true.
So they have to say lots of things that kind of sound a bit like that if you are not paying attention, because it would be really good for them if it was true. But it's not.
France is going to struggle to keep 50% of their power nuclear even with a will to try. So in many ways it does not matter.
But so many people say it as a way to, falsely, impugn renewables that I'm standing on the principle. What you claim is true is not true. The document does not claim it, and if it did it would be lying.
> No, it doesn't. They'd love to be able to say that. The reason they don't say it loudly and clearly is because it's not true.
You sound like a conspiracy theorist. The people writing these documents are engineers working at a public company, not members of a secret group trying to wash your brain.
All the data they quote can be cross-examined. It doesn't require belief to make one's mind up.
> France is going to struggle to keep 50% of their power nuclear even with a will to try.
I don't really see how that's related to the load-following ability of nuclear plants.
Figure 1.3 for example, which shows the flexibility of nuclear in France and nuclear is the thing on the chart that varies least, while all the other follow the demand much more closely, especially hydro.
Or figure 4.1 where they don't bother going below 60% usage as the price for nuclear would just keep rising, and it's out of design range for most of them anyway.
As that document makes clear, nuclear has limited technical flexibility, but it's the economics that is the deal breaker. So talking about what is possible is hardly relevant.
Any attempt to deploy more nuclear in France would have rapidly hit diminishing returns and been financially disastrous.
Offshore wind does peak in winter along with European demand, nuclear similarly schedules its maintenance and refueling for the summer which helps but both will almost certainly overproduce relative to current demand during the night on a predictable daily schedule if rolled out to any great extent so lithium batteries (in EVs or otherwise) do a lot to integrate their power over the short term as well as the TOU rates France has used for decades to make the most of nuclear power.
> EDF advises “The Heures Pleines option will suit you especially if you want to take advantage of price per kWh at the most advantageous to the day (ie 8 hours daily peak)”. Basically if you have a night-storage electric water heater, or storage radiators, then you would be best to choose this option, which provides off peak electricity rates to heat your appliances. See peak and off-peak rates on the EDF website.