French Electricity Demand Is Expected To Increase Due To Electric Vehicle Adoption And Emission Reduction Technology

The new Falmanville 3 reactor, which is expected to start generating electricity by the end of this year (photo: dock.wikipedia).

JAKARTA - Demand for electricity in France is expected to increase significantly in 2035 due to the adoption of electric vehicles and other technologies to reduce emissions, French power grid operator RTE said on Wednesday, June 7.

The European Union in March approved a law to end sales of new CO2 emissioned cars by 2035.

To achieve this goal, electricity is needed both to power electric vehicles and to power the battery plants needed by car manufacturers to produce these vehicles. The production of synthetic flight fuels is also highly electricity-dependent.

As a result, electricity usage is expected to increase by nearly 10 terawatt-hours (TWh) per year on average in the next decade, to between 580 to 640 TWh by 2035, according to climate and energy reports from RTE.

This figure is compared to 452.8 TWh in 2022, which is a year of crisis as Europe seeks to reduce its energy demand to address the effects of war in Ukraine, and France's nuclear electric capacity is experiencing unusually high maintenance, bringing its energy production down to its lowest level in 34 years.

Demand for electricity remains below pre-pandemic levels, and according to the report, new demand growth will be in line with the last level in the 1980s, when new nuclear electric capacity was built to deal with it, early in 2025.

"This report highlights the magnitude of the challenges facing French power systems," the report said.

Over the decade towards 2035, RTE projects the average availability of nuclear electricity of 350 TWh per year.

The new Falmanville 3 reactor, which is expected to start generating electricity by the end of this year, if there are no further delays, will add 10 TWh per year.

However, the report states that France will need an extension of the operational lifespan of other nuclear reactors by up to 60 years, something ASN's Nuclear Security Supervisory Agency is considering.

Nuclear energy generally provides about 70% of France's electricity supply and will continue to dominate, but the supply of renewable energy will also increase. The new ground wind and solar power plant is expected to dominate renewable energy growth by 2030. Offshore wind energy is expected to be the main source of growth between 2030 and 2035.