The high temperature of Mediterranean seawater, used to cool the Martigues gas-fired power plant, is likely to entail restrictions in its production until further notice, operator Electricite de France, or EDF, said on Thursday.
The 930-megawatt plant in the south of France is verging on being taken offline due to the high water temperature, Reuters reported on Friday. An exception made, to allow it to run until sea water hits 32 Celsius instead of 30, looks likely to be reached.
This comes at a time of surging power demand for cooling while nuclear energy is also facing struggles due to the reduced effectiveness of available water supplies to cool reactors, due to accumulated heat.
If the plant goes offline, it would add further strain to a grid already making do without 4.9 gigawatts of nuclear generation capacity taken offline on Thursday over high river temperatures.
Another 2.5 gigawatts is offline due to low river levels, Reuters said.
Nuclear provides about 70% of the country's power while gas is a minor part of France's power mix. The nuclear outages sum about 14% of the country's total capacity, the article said.