French nuclear Dec output forecast cut after Nov setbacks: S&P Global

A slower than expected ramp-up of French nuclear saw November output average 38 GW, up 8 GW on the year, but 5 GW below forecast amid record wind and hydro generation and some technical setbacks across EDF's fleet of 56 reactors, system data show Dec. 1.

Analysts at S&P Global Commodity Insights cut their forecast for December's average output by 2.3 GW to 43.9 GW, according to a weekly report on Nov. 30.

"This means we forecast a total [French nuclear] generation of 320 TWh for 2023," the analysts said noting that this would lift annual production almost 15% from last year's 30-year low.

Daily availability load factors rose sharply late November amid the swing to colder weather with output peaking Nov. 30 at 43.6 GW, the highest in nine months.

Meanwhile, demand peaked at 71 GW, also the highest this winter, according to data by grid operator RTE.

RTE forecasts peak demand around 75 GW on Dec. 4, falling back to 68 GW by Dec. 8 as average temperatures are set to rise 4 C from below to above normal.

Four reactors are scheduled to return by Dec. 6 with another four in the run-up to the Christmas holidays, which could lift availability above 50 GW (see reactor watchlist).

However, EDF's 1.3-GW Nogent-2 reactor, taken offline Nov. 13 for unplanned repairs to a turbine alternator, remains unavailable for the rest of 2023.

Golfech-1, expected to restart early November, is now scheduled to return Dec. 12 from a 10-year overhaul since February 2022.

Elsewhere, Flamanville-2 is set to restart Dec. 3 after an unplanned month-long outage following storm damage to power lines.

Record exports

Despite this, French net power exports rose to their highest for November since 2015 with nuclear contributing to a 9 TWh supply boost in addition to exceptionally wet and windy weather.

Domestic demand only increased 2 TWh compared with November 2022.

Great Britain saw the biggest net swing on its French interconnectors (2.8 TWh), followed by Belgium (2.3 TWh) and Germany (1.9 TWh) compared to November 2022 when France was a net importer due to long-term reactor repairs.

S&P Global analysts forecast French net exports to average 5.1 GW in December compared to net imports of 2.7 GW last December.

However, December flows are highly bi-directional depending on hourly demand and supply fundamentals with temperatures and wind the key swing factors.

France can swing from premium to discount market intraday requiring imports during peak hours in cold and calm weather, but still exporting outside peak hours.

Interconnectors to Italy and Great Britain had some outages in November with the 1-GW IFA-2 link to GB now unavailable until end-January.

Platts, a unit of S&P Global Commodity Insights, last assessed UK December baseload power at GBP89.90/MWh (Eur104.24/MWh), rising to GBP99.15/MWh (Eur114.97/MWh) for January, maintaining a slight premium over France and most other Continental markets except Italy.

French reactor watchlist

Source: EDF (compiled by S&P Global Commodity Insights from REMIT notes to Dec. 1)