The state of the Danube is currently showing just how dependent nuclear power plants are on their local conditions. At the power station in Paks, Hungary — which normally produces about 40% of the country's electricity needs — only one of four turbine units is still operating. Due to record-low water levels in the Danube, the country's only nuclear power plant was even briefly at risk of a complete shutdown.
But for the European electricity market, France is of far greater significance. No other country in Europe relies so heavily on nuclear power, and if output in France drops, the country supplies less electricity to its neighbors, and may even become an electricity importer itself.
Reduced power
Over the course of the entire year, heat-related production losses at French power plants are minimal, but during individual weeks of extreme heat, the restrictions can be significant.
A 2023 report by France's official audit office estimated that, between 2000 and 2022, annual losses across all of the country's nuclear reactors due to high water temperatures and low river levels amounted to less than 1% of annual nuclear power production in any given year. Even in the extremely hot summer of 2003, they amounted to only about 1.5%.
