Regular Article

The role of power sources in the European electricity mix

¹ Commissariat à l’Énergie Atomique et aux Énergies Alternatives, Direction de l’Énergie Nucléaire, CEA Saclay, Bât. 121, 91191 Gif-sur-Yvette cedex, France
² PHELMA/Grenoble INP and LPSC/IN2P3/CNRS, 53 rue des Martyrs, 38026 Grenoble cedex, France
³ Institut de Radioprotection et de Sûreté Nucléaire, 31 avenue de la Division Leclerc, 92262 Fontenay-aux-Roses, France
⁴ Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l’Environnement, L’Orme des Merisiers, 91191 Gif-sur-Yvette cedex, France

^* e-mail: bernard.bonin@cea.fr

Received: 3 May 2015
Accepted: 13 November 2015
Published online: 3 April 2017

Abstract

The ongoing debate in Europe about energy transition enhances the necessity to evaluate the performance of the envisaged mix of power sources, in terms of production cost, CO₂ emissions and security of supply. In this study, we use MIXOPTIM, a Monte-Carlo simulator of the behavior of a mix of power sources on a territory, to evaluate the performance of the present EU power mix. After a validation on the French mix, we applied it to the whole EU territory and made variational calculations around the present mix to evaluate the performance impacts induced by small changes in installed renewable power and nuclear power. According to the analyzed criteria, the study shows that a plausible way to keep an affordable MWh in Europe with minimal amount of CO₂ emissions and acceptable security of supply could be to extend the life of existing Gen II nuclear reactors. All other options lead to the degradation of the mix performance, on at least one of the three criteria listed above.