L R AS Published on Monday 17 January 2022 - n° 389 - Categories:stopping / restarting of activity
How to compensate for the closure of nuclear power stations in just a few years
Belgium has four years to replace the nuclear fleet that generated 39% of its electricity in 2020. Belgian legislators have pledged to phase it out by the end of 2025.
This year, Germany plans to shut down the last reactors in a fleet that will supply 11% of its electricity by 2020.
Spain, which obtained 22% of its electricity from nuclear power in 2020, has promised to phase out this energy source over the decade.
Eurostat indicates that nuclear power stations produced almost a quarter of the Union's electricity in 2020. The main nuclear Member States (France, which with 354 TWh accounts for around 52% of the EU's nuclear electricity production in 2020, Germany, Spain and Sweden) produce more than three quarters of this figure of 684 TWh. This shows the immense task facing the countries of the Union if they are to replace the atom with renewable energies.
PV Magazine, 13 January
Editor's note By trying so hard to raise targets, we end up not achieving them. This is the case for Belgium. It will be difficult to balance its energy production with its consumption if the country closes its various nuclear power stations so quickly.
Germany is also in a very difficult situation, because it has nuclear power and, above all, coal. While nuclear power accounts for 11%, coal and lignite account for 25% of national production. Even if we speed up the transition from fossil fuels to renewables, it will be too difficult to manage, because we need to think about intermittence (and therefore plan for storage) as well as transferring the renewable energy produced to consumption areas. Electricity infrastructures are not the same and the production phases of renewables are probably not yet fully understood.
France, with 52% of the Union's nuclear capacity, wants to retain its specificity
