The role of power sources in the European electricity mix

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.