European Nuclear Plants Idled As Green Power Surges

Surging renewables and a slump in power prices are undermining the operations of atomic plants that still form the cornerstone of electricity grids in several parts of Europe, as reported by Lars Paulsson, Francois de Beaupuy, and Thomas Gualtieri for Bloomberg News.

Electricité de France SA (EDF), which is just getting its fleet of nuclear plants back on track after years of lengthy outages for repairs and checks, has already had to reduce output and halt plants or extend stoppages. I Photo: EDF

“With current power prices, the traditional baseload plants will struggle, unless we face longer periods with very unfavorable solar and wind conditions, drought, or strong heat,” said Sigurd Pedersen Lie, a senior analyst at StormGeo Nena A/S in Oslo.

Longer-term, it’s a warning sign that reactors might increasingly get squeezed out, even as countries such as France and the UK plan to spend huge sums on new plants, having identified the technology as a key element in the fight to limit global warming.

Electricité de France SA (EDF), which is just getting its fleet of nuclear plants back on track after years of lengthy outages for repairs and checks, has already had to reduce output and halt plants or extend stoppages.

Over the weekend, the firm idled half a dozen plants as prices turned negative.

In Spain, electricity prices for Friday plunged to the lowest level since 2013 and have barely settled above zero for weeks.

The country’s Asco I and Asco 2 reactors have cut output on a regular basis in the past five weeks. In the Nordic region, operators are also curbing output more often, as reported by Eamon Akil Farhat and Amanda Jordan for Bloomberg News.