POWER
French hydropower reserves last week – calendar week 38 – failed to climb from the previous week to end at 3.058TWh, or 85.17% of capacity from 86.3% the week prior, RTE data showed.
- Stocks narrowed the surplus to the five-year average to 13.16 percentage points from 13.42 points the week before – which at the time was the highest surplus so far this year.
- Reserves also decreased their surplus on year to 6.93 points from 7.81 but remained higher than the surpluses in weeks 35-36.
- Hydropower output from pumped storage increased to 738MW from 402MW the week prior. Run-of-river generation last week was at 3.03GW from 3.77GW. Output from reservoirs was firm on the week at 940MW compared to 965MW in week 37.
- Nuclear generation last week increased to 38.56GW from 37.72GW the week before.
- Solar PV output last week declined to 3.18GW from 3.6GW in week 37.
- Offshore Wind output last week increased to 566MW from 522MW, with onshore wind at 5.35GW compared to around 5.1GW in week 37.
- Power demand in France last week stood at 41.98GW remaining firm from the previous week at 41.96GW.
- Precipitation in the hydro-intensive region of Grenoble last week totalled around 23mm, up from10.6mm in the previous week.
- Looking forward, the latest weather forecast for Grenoble for this week suggested precipitation to increase to as high as 34.8mm on 26 September – compared to the seasonal norm of about 3mm for the same day. Rain will then drop off to be below over next few days.
- Flooding has also been reported in Cannes on Monday.
- Mean temperatures in Paris this week will be below the seasonal normal throughout the 6-10 day forecast – with minimum temperatures seen as low as 5C on 29 Sept – which could spur some heating demand.
France’s hydrological balance is forecast to remain positive until at least 8 October. The balance is forecast to end this week at +4.46TWh.
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