France vs England: On the pitch and the power market

As England prepares to take on France in this weekend’s World Cup quarter final, Jean-Paul Harreman, director of EnAppSys BV, compares how the two countries line up in their respective power markets. While one will inevitably leave Qatar empty-handed, Harreman argues both must work together to balance power at the least cost to consumers in one of the first proper tests of the winter.

There are a lot of analogies to draw between the France vs England world cup match and the way the power market is struggling to cope this weekend and especially Monday. Where both countries struggle to meet demand, they may find themselves competing for power flows from other European countries.

So, what’s happening to make things this tight?

Let’s look at GB first. GB has relied on help from continental Europe for a long time. European countries have been exporting their power (and their best football players) to England as far back as when Dennis Bergkamp made Arsenal the Premier League champions (give or take a few years).

This import dependency has fed into the capacity mechanism where capacity is purchased for when the wind does not blow. This has resulted in more than 5GW of GB generation capacity being supplied by interconnectors to other countries. This makes GB dependent on its neighbours when the wind does not blow.

In France, exporting power has been the norm ever since interconnectors were invented. The choice of focusing on a single source of power generation (nuclear) has served them as well as Kylian Mbappé in the first rounds of the World Cup.

Cheap nuclear power has made the French very dependent on that source of power generation and when those power plants, which are now getting quite old and starting to break down, it turned out there were knock-on effects. Because nuclear power was cheap, most of the heating in France is electric and there has never been much room for other sources of generation as these would have been pushed out of the market by cheap nuclear power.

The French were never very big on building interconnector capacity, as the power in adjacent countries was always more expensive. This would mean they would be exporting their cheap power abroad and be faced with higher prices at home, as a result.

The French appetite for electrical heating makes the power system vulnerable to cold snaps. A period of moderate weather sees low demand, but a cold snap, like the one coming over the weekend and into next week, adds a level of demand the size of Netherlands plus Belgium to the French market.

Are we going to be able to watch the game?

I’m quite confident that National Grid and RTE will manage to keep the lights on this Saturday evening. Weekend demand is always a bit lower than weekday demand and during the game demand will decline. It may get a little exciting at half time, as during the Senegal game there was a demand spike of around 800 MW as the England fans ran to put the kettle on and pop to the loo, but in general I think the total capacity plus imports should be sufficient for both countries.

How about Monday?

Monday is a lot tighter, though. French demand forecasts show numbers between 80 and 85 GW; the total available generation capacity (and I mean everything they have) for the evening peak is slightly below 70 GW. The highest imports we have seen to date in France was 13 GW, which included the full available capacity of the France-GB interconnectors.

National Grid GB demand forecasts show around 46 GW of demand at the peak. So, GB will also have to import power from the continent or think seriously about starting reserve coal-fired power plants to meet demand. Wind is forecast to increase into the evening peak but weather models are still not resolving on a firm forecast for this period so there is a risk that generation margins will be very tight, especially if the interconnectors are on full export to France.

Booking the capacity on the interconnectors is done through an auction on Sunday at 9:00 GB-time, 10:00 CET, so that will be a good indication of where the flow will go. We will also know the weather prognosis for the evening peak.

So, what happens if demand can’t be matched? Will we see blackouts?

That is unlikely to happen, although you can never rule it out completely. The day-ahead market will be very tight though and intraday and balancing markets will be affected around France and in GB.

There is a slight chance that the market can’t clear in France as demand could be higher than supply, which would mean the price would reach the maximum level of € 4.000/MWh in France. After a waiting period of five weeks after that, a new price maximum would come into force at € 5.000 if that were to happen.

Not clearing the market for an hour would leave some demand unmatched, which would leave the volume to be matched in the balancing market or not to be consumed (industrial demand). France also participates in cross-border reserve markets, which can help, but at a very high cost.

This weekend, France will play England on the football pitch and one team will have to win and one team will have to lose. On Monday, France and GB will have to work as one team via the market to share power resources across the interconnectors to balance power at the least cost to consumers in one of the first proper tests of the winter.