French Power Prices Surge as Outages Plague Nuclear Reactors

Date: 14 January 2023 - 22:14

News ID: ۱۱۱۳۱۳

PARIS (Telegraph) - France power prices have risen after the launch of two nuclear reactors in France were delayed as repairs continued.
The pushback for the EDF sites is the latest setback for the French electricity market after a raft of problems with its nuclear fleet.
The country’s state-owned electricity company said last month that the closures have condemned France to two years of low output at the height of the European energy crisis.
Dozens of the country’s reactors are offline due to maintenance or corrosion.
Today it emerged that the Chooz-1 unit is now due to start on February 28, a month later than planned, while Blayais-1 was delayed by 10 days to February 11, according to data submitted to the grid.
The prolonged outages will set back the recovery of the nation’s nuclear capacity just when those reactors are needed the most as demand peaks in winter.
French power prices for next month gained the most in two weeks, rising as much as 3.9pc.
Heinz is raising its prices for the second time in less than a year after a row with Tesco over passing soaring production costs onto consumers.
The company told The Telegraph that as costs of energy and ingredients continued to rise, it had been forced to raise prices.
It comes after shoppers seeking out the brand’s ketchup and baked beans products were met with empty shelves for weeks last summer when Tesco and Heinz locked horns over prices.
The UK’s biggest supermarket chain had refused to accept a price increase, so Heinz stopped making deliveries. At the time Tesco said it would not pass on “unjustifiable” price increases.