Typically you want to keep nuclear plants running at full power all the time, as most of the costs are fixed or sunk, independent of the electricity output. Most countries use nuclear power just to generate a small fraction of their electricity, so can do this without issue.
However over 90% of France’s generating capacity is from nuclear power, so during low demand times there is a lot of excess. They do actually shutdown some reactors during weekends, but it’s better if they can sell the electricity cheaply to their neighbours, who can then avoid running some of their gas or coal plants - so it’s a
win-win for everyone.
> over 90% of France’s generating capacity is from nuclear power
I knew France used nuclear power, but I didn't realize they relied on it so heavily. Yes, in this case they'd get more excess since they're running above base load.
Do they really shut the reactors down during the weekends? My dad worked in nuclear, and the plant would be down for a few days if it ever tripped, planned outages were about two weeks.
