French nuclear retreats from 12-month high amid early start to 2021 maintenance

London — French nuclear generation availability is trending lower with three reactors scheduled to come offline for maintenance Feb. 6, market data showed Feb. 5.

Nuclear peaked at a year-high of 52 GW in early January and was just below 50 GW on Feb. 5, according to system operator RTE.

Tricastin 2 was set to come offline overnight into Feb. 6 for a 10-year operation overhaul, the first of seven such extended outages this year.

From Feb. 6, six French reactors will have started 2021 maintenance, with five more to come this month, an unprecedented 11 reactors starting maintenance before March.

Reactors set for 10-year overhauls in 2021

Source: EDF Transparency

S&P Global Platts Analytics assumes February output to average around 46 GW, a new record low for that month, before recovering above last year's monthly averages.

Meanwhile, two units were scheduled to return next week (Bugey-2 on Feb. 8 and Gravelines-3 on Feb. 9).

Nuclear generation averaged 49.8 GW in January, a record low for the month.

However, January's 37 TWh generated was up 8% from December as reactors returned.

Paluel 2 and Belleville 1 returned from extended outages, while maintenance at Flamanville 1 was extended by another month to the end of March.

Two strikes, an incident at Paluel and a return to milder and at times windy weather affected nuclear output in the second half of January.

Strikes continue

Another 24-hour strike was scheduled to start Feb. 9 at 2000 GMT, EDF said on its transparency website Feb. 4.

EDF workers are protesting against planned restructuring of the French state-owned utility, splitting nuclear and other operations.

Ongoing discussions with the European Commission about the details of the planned reform of the ARENH price mechanism have delayed a first presentation of those plans envisaged in January.

EDF currently has to sell 100 TWh of nuclear generation at Eur42/MWh to domestic suppliers.

The reform aims to lift prices as well as volumes.

French year-ahead power has risen above Eur53/MWh, the highest in 17 months, EEX data shows.

French Reactor Watchlist

Source: EDF Transparency