European Electricity Statistics 2023
What kept the lights on?
When it comes to electricity generation, it's worth remembering that the European Union operates on an interconnected transmission grid with a wholesale electricity market that consists of a mix of state owned utilities and private generation. This fact makes it of questionable value to study an individual country’s electricity mix in isolation.
The entire transmission system as a whole needs to be examined to obtain a comprehensive understanding of electricity flows and generation mixes across the European Union.
As the graph below shows, Europe is a mixed energy system, with non carbon sources having some of the highest penetration in the world.
But what is the name of the technology at the bottom of the curve, that is currently banned and/or under attack in numerous legislations across the old continent?
What is the technology that runs consistently in Summer?
And runs consistently in winter?
What is this technology that has the highest share of the electricity generation all year around?
What is the name of this technology that our politicians, despite making symbolic pledges, are reluctant to mention in public?
When will they realize that when the capital expenditure is paid off that this technology boasts some of the lowest operational costs among all energy sources?
When are they going to stop listening to the conflicted “experts”?
When will they provide support for it instead of actively working towards its destruction, as is currently the case in Spain?
Will this be in 2024?
Nuclear power is the duct tape of the European electrical grid.
Pull it off and the entire grid collapses (along with the rest of the economy).
"Dreams become goals. Goals become training objectives. Training objectives become workouts."
Joe Friel
Might also apply to nuclear. Without a plan goals are merely dreams.