I’m afraid it is rather the opposite. Sometimes Germany exports electricity to France, but most of the time it is the contrary.
“ France has been an exporter on all its borders: a very strong exporter on the borders with Germany and Belgium, Switzerland, Italy and Great Britain”
It’s a back and forth, yes. Though quite often the cause for France needing an urgent power injection is issues with their nuclear powerplants. With ever hotter and drier summers leaving powerplants with little to no water as coolant and the aging buildings requiring more and more maintenance.
I can’t find the article right now but sometime late last year Germany had its yearly “Dunkelflaute” scare (Dunkelflaute refers to a time when neither sun is shining nor wind blowing for renewables) and it turned out during this exact timeframe we even exported to France because of troubles with their reactors.
In 2025 France exported 31TWh to Germany and Belgium and imported 4TWh.
I would say the issue with nuclear is that it cannot follow load changes quickly and therefore needs other sources to compensate peaks.
There has been a time a few years ago with maintenance issues you are right. However right now it is available at 85% which is a high score. In comparison today, a cloudy day, only 14-20% of solar and wind renewables are producing power.
Yes, nuclear reactors can’t do load balancing. However they can neither meet basic demand when they have to be stopped because of a lack of coolant or for repairs.
I’m afraid it is rather the opposite. Sometimes Germany exports electricity to France, but most of the time it is the contrary.
“ France has been an exporter on all its borders: a very strong exporter on the borders with Germany and Belgium, Switzerland, Italy and Great Britain”
https://analysesetdonnees.rte-france.com/bilan-electrique-2024/echanges#Detailparfrontiere
It’s a back and forth, yes. Though quite often the cause for France needing an urgent power injection is issues with their nuclear powerplants. With ever hotter and drier summers leaving powerplants with little to no water as coolant and the aging buildings requiring more and more maintenance.
I can’t find the article right now but sometime late last year Germany had its yearly “Dunkelflaute” scare (Dunkelflaute refers to a time when neither sun is shining nor wind blowing for renewables) and it turned out during this exact timeframe we even exported to France because of troubles with their reactors.
In 2025 France exported 31TWh to Germany and Belgium and imported 4TWh. I would say the issue with nuclear is that it cannot follow load changes quickly and therefore needs other sources to compensate peaks. There has been a time a few years ago with maintenance issues you are right. However right now it is available at 85% which is a high score. In comparison today, a cloudy day, only 14-20% of solar and wind renewables are producing power.
Availability values here: https://analysesetdonnees.rte-france.com/en/generation/generation-availability
Yes, nuclear reactors can’t do load balancing. However they can neither meet basic demand when they have to be stopped because of a lack of coolant or for repairs.