France calls for more electricity to be imported from neighbouring countries

France sent an emergency power alert to neighbours including the UK and
Spain this week, asking them to be ready to send as much electricity as
possible after a huge trading error jeopardised French supplies. The
request was triggered by a trading error by one of France’s regional energy
providers, which accidentally oversold huge amounts of electricity over a
two-day period.

The unusual alert added to Europe-wide energy stresses as
the region faces its worst power crisis in decades owing to soaring costs
driven by Russia’s cutting of gas flows.

It also underlined severe strains
in France’s power network, which is struggling with an unprecedented number
of outages at its nuclear reactors — the linchpin of its generation
system. French grid operator RTE said it on Tuesday sent the call for
neighbouring countries to prepare to export more power overnight. The UK’s
National Grid and a person close to Spain’s power network confirmed that
their countries received the alert.

FT 11th Sept 2022

https://www.ft.com/content/4d38e508-6b0a-4074-8978-3feca795a90f