RTE who are the French electricity network operator asked National Grid on Monday if they could cut their scheduled exports to the UK to cope with soaring demand between 8am and 9am this morning.
In recent months France’s nuclear power supplies have been limited and today France suffered further output issues amid the freezing temperatures.
Nuclear supplies have been hit due to delayed maintenance on their old reactors amid strike action in the country.
Phil Hewitt, a director at EnAppSys, said, “The French market was particularly under stress today. It was always going to be in trouble because of the reduced nuclear reactor fleet, the temperature is low and there has been a big demand spike combined with low wind.”