It was considered “an old record”. Established in 2002, it was starting to date. That year, Jean-Marie Le Pen was invited to the second round of the presidential election. And France had broken its electricity export record with a balance of 76.9 terawatt-hours (TWh). A record swept away in 2024, according to the LinkedIn post of a member of the board of Réseau transport Electrique (RTE). According to Thomas Veyrenc, 89 TWh could be exported to our neighbors. A figure which confirms France's renewed form in terms of electricity production after years of suffering linked to the hassles of the nuclear fleet.
In 2023, the balance also proved largely positive for France with 50 TWh exported to our German, Belgian, Italian and English neighbors. In 2022, numerous reactor maintenance operations linked to corrosion problems had caused EDF's nuclear production to plunge to its lowest level in thirty years. France had to import electricity, which had not happened to it for more than forty years.
Consumption remains low
EDF's forecasts have also been revised upwards and should increase with the commissioning of the Flamanville EPR, connected to the network on December 21. But nuclear power is not the only one to have produced coal in 2024. According to Thomas Veyrenc, “exceptional hydraulic production” and the “continued development of wind and solar power” have contributed to this good performance.
If France has broken its record, it is also because its electricity consumption has remained low, which is sometimes seen as “problematic” by observers. “Transfers in the use of fossil fuels towards electricity have not been initiated at the level required to decarbonize in depth,” regrets the head of RTE.
France
