(Removes reference to ‘Friday’ in paragraph one as the first advisory was issued Thursday)
PARIS (Reuters) -High water temperatures are expected to affect electricity production on the Rhone river in eastern France from June 25, particularly at the 3.6 gigawatt (GW) Bugey nuclear plant, nuclear operator EDF said in a notice.
This is the first warning for high river temperatures in France in 2025, as heatwaves can affect the environmental regulatory threshold for cooling water that goes through the system and then gets discharged.
A heatwave is expected to sweep through France this weekend, according to data from state forecaster Meteo France, with temperatures expected to get as high as 38 degrees Celsius (100.4°F) in southern France.
The 3.6 GW Cruas nuclear plant and the 2.6 GW Saint-Alban nuclear plant are down river of the Bugey plant but were not mentioned in the bulletin.
One of the 1.3 GW reactors at Saint-Alban and one of the reactors at Cruas are currently offline for maintenance.
EDF can often lower production at individual reactors rather than taking the whole nuclear plant offline, so if reactors are off for maintenance than the current operating reactors can be left unaffected.
Nuclear power accounts for about 70% of total French power consumption annually, and the summer is usually maintenance season as demand is generally lower.
(Reporting by Forrest CrellinEditing by Tomasz Janowski and David Evans)
