Planes, cosmetics, wines… and electrons. Thanks to the deployment of its nuclear fleet, electricity has gradually become one of France’s export products. Except in 2022: the country then imported more than it exported to its neighbors, in particular Germany, Belgium, Great Britain and Spain. ” A first ” since 1980, specifies the national manager of the electricity transport network (RTE), in its report of the past year, Thursday, February 16. That is a negative balance of 16.5 terawatt hours (TWh), which corresponds to just under 4% of national electricity consumption.
This deficit mainly reflects the drop in electricity production, which fell from 522 TWh to 445 TWh from one year to the next. This level had never fallen so low since 1992, “while the historic nuclear fleet was not yet fully in service”continues the balance sheet.
Nuclear power generated nearly 63% of national electricity production in 2022, compared to 69% in 2021. Its decline, both in percentage and in absolute value (–82 TWh), is due in particular to an unexpected event. A stress corrosion phenomenon on auxiliary pipes shut down the most powerful reactors, causing the fleet availability rate to plummet: 54% in 2022, compared to 73% on average between 2015 and 2019.
Hydraulic losses
To make matters worse, the lack of water has also affected the hydroelectric dams. “Hydraulic production has reached its lowest level since 1976, due to exceptionally hot and dry climatic conditions”, underlines RTE. At the sum of all the energies, “the trade balance widened, in particular during the summer, a period during which France is usually a strong exporter”. In order to partially compensate for the losses linked to hydraulics – which still weighs 11% of the electricity production mix – the country has relied heavily on its gas-fired power stations (10%), despite their carbon dioxide emissions.
With the war in Ukraine and the related supply tensions, the country’s energy bill will total 115 billion euros in 2022
The negative balance of electricity trade has resulted in a deficit of 7.4 billion euros for France (compared to a surplus of 2.6 billion euros in 2021), according to annual customs figures . This represents 15.9 billion euros of imports, against 8.5 billion euros of exports.
You have 42.45% of this article left to read. The following is for subscribers only.