In France, 95% of electricity comes from nuclear and renewables.

With 536,5 TWh, French electricity production reached "its highest level in 5 years", thus returning to "a level identical to that of 2019, in line with the 2014-2019 average (537,5 TWh)", according to a report published on Monday.

Nuclear power remains by far the leading source of electricity production, with a share of 67,41%.

The share of renewables (wind, solar, dams, biomass) is climbing to an unprecedented level and accounts for 27,6% of the electricity production mix. A performance even lower than that of Germany or the United Kingdom.

In Germany, where nuclear power will disappear in 2024, the share of electricity production solely from renewables stands at 59%, according to the German regulator.

In the UK, which closed its last coal-fired power station in September, the low-carbon share of electricity has reached a record 58%, of which 45% is renewable and 13% is nuclear, according to a study by Carbon Brief.

For several years, France has been waging a standoff with Brussels, promoting its nuclear energy, which is low carbon like renewables, to meet climate objectives.

RTE claims that French low-carbon production has thus "reached for the first time the threshold of 95% of electricity produced in France", compared to 92,2% in 2023.

No competition

The 8,45% increase in electricity production compared to 2023 is due to several factors.

The "rapid recovery" of nuclear power (361,7 TWh) continued after the start of a recovery in 2023. The black year of 2022 was marked by historically low production for 30 years (279 TWh), with corrosion problems leading to the closure for inspection or repair of many reactors in the nuclear fleet.

Added to this is "exceptional hydraulic production", at its highest since 2013 (74,7 TWh) while rainfall records have been reached in certain places in France as well as "sustained growth in production from the wind and solar sectors (70 TWh in 2024, compared to 46 TWh in 2019)".

This is again a first, underlines RTE: renewable production "reached a record of 148 TWh", of which around a third came from wind power (46,6 TWh).

"These results illustrate that nuclear and renewables can develop in an 'additive' way" and "do not enter into competition", underlined Thomas Veyrenc, general director of economy, strategy and finance at RTE in a message on LinkedIn.

Fossils at their lowest

Conversely, in 2024, it had been decades since France had ever produced so little electricity from fossil fuel power stations (gas, coal, fuel oil): this is "its lowest level since the beginning of the 1950s (19,9 TWh)", representing "for the first time", a cumulative level lower than solar production (23,3 TWh).

France, which plans to abandon its coal-fired power stations in 2027, produced 0,7 TWh of electricity from this highly polluting fuel and greenhouse gas emitter, 1,8 TWh from fuel oil and 17,4 TWh from gas-fired power stations, less than in 2023 (29,2 TWh).

According to RTE, the carbon intensity of French electricity production was 21,3 grams of CO2 equivalent per kWh, almost a third less than in 2023. "This is one of the lowest in the world," RTE said.

If having almost entirely carbon-free electricity is one of the levers for achieving carbon neutrality by 2050, the next step – and more difficult, Thomas Veyrenc told AFP – consists of "succeeding in electrifying our economy, which still depends on 60% of fossil fuels", imported, for its cars, its factories or its housing.

Illustrative image of the article via Depositphotos.com.