In recent years, the collaboration between France and Germany in energy production was very beneficial. There are times, when Germany does import electricity from France, this is increasing the profitability of the nuclear reactors, as they can be run at a higher percentage of their capacity, which generally is larger than the French requirements. To be able to follow the varying requirements of the grid, they usually run at 75% load on average. Selling surplus capacity is very attractive then. On the other side, there are times when surplus renewable energy is very welcome in France, when the reactory are struggling to keep up with demand, e.g. when they are low on cooling capacity due to low waters. Germany is still a net electricity exporter.
Germany "exports" as much as in "dumping excess energy onto it's neighbouring countries grids to keep its own grid from melting" – which is why we run the worst electricity export business in the world, having to pay our neighbours money as they aren't taking it for free.
It’s cool for the neighbours though, especially france which is a historical exporter (owing to its stable and relatively efficient nukes). When germany pays you 5c to take a kWh off their grid and italy 30 to get one there's good money to be made if your grid can cope.
> On the other side, there are times when surplus renewable energy is very welcome in France, when the reactory are struggling to keep up with demand, e.g. when they are low on cooling capacity due to low waters.
That’s usually not true fwiw, germany tends to export when nobody needs the electricity e.g. fair weather with high winds, especially week-ends.
And it’s not so much exporting as dumping, german electricity prices regularly go negative because winds crush the grid and they need to shift it so they don’t melt.
The “collaborative” aspect is that france has a large and resilient grid well connected to less provisioned southern neighbors (wholesale prices in spain and italy tend to be quite high), so they can arbitrate and profit some.
But they also must, because continental europe is a synchronous grid so if germany melts down it fucks up the entire continent.
