This is a record since 1992. Electricity production in France, in 2022, was the lowest in the last thirty years, the manager of the electricity transmission network RTE announced on Thursday February 16 in its annual report. According to him, this is explained by a historic drop in nuclear production linked to the difficulties of the EDF reactor fleet.
Only 62.7% of electricity was of nuclear origin last year, compared to 69% in 2021 and more than 70% before. In absolute terms, never so few terawatt-hours (TWh) of nuclear origin had been produced since 1988, before the end of the construction of the nuclear fleet, i.e. a production of 279 TWh in 2022, a far cry from the time where France produced 430 TWh as in 2005.
“France has shown its resilience”
Despite an unprecedented energy crisis since the oil shock of the 1970s, against a backdrop of supply tensions linked to the war in Ukraine, “France has shown its resilience and its security of supply has been guaranteed”said Xavier Piechaczyk, Chairman of the Executive Board of RTE, during a press conference.
France has thus avoided the black scenario of power cuts in the heart of winter, thanks to electricity imports and the increase in the nuclear fleet at the end of the year, combined with a drop in national electricity consumption by households and businesses. Compared to historical average values (2014-2019), consumption for the year 2022 fell by 4.2% in 2022, a drop mainly concentrated in the last quarter.