Nuclear cannot be used as a “backup”. France is using nuclear for baseload generation, just like every other grid with nuclear generators.
And that is the underlying problem. Like all grid providers, they are incentivizing overnight consumption to improve the efficiency of their baseload generators.
Those perverse incentives are the primary cause of the problems you are describing.
Remove those perverse incentives.
Those industries currently taking advantage of the incentives switch to cheap daytime power instead of cheap night time power. They increase daytime demand, reducing the overcapacity problem.
Now the overnight baseload has dropped. We can now reduce nuclear baseload generation overnight, which also reduces it during the day. Now the daytime overcapacity problem is also reduced.
Nuclear cannot be used as a “backup”. France is using nuclear for baseload generation, just like every other grid with nuclear generators.
And that is the underlying problem. Like all grid providers, they are incentivizing overnight consumption to improve the efficiency of their baseload generators.
Those perverse incentives are the primary cause of the problems you are describing.
Remove those perverse incentives.
Those industries currently taking advantage of the incentives switch to cheap daytime power instead of cheap night time power. They increase daytime demand, reducing the overcapacity problem.
Now the overnight baseload has dropped. We can now reduce nuclear baseload generation overnight, which also reduces it during the day. Now the daytime overcapacity problem is also reduced.