Electricity production in France 2019-2020, by source

The production of electricity in France in 2019 was mainly reliant on nuclear energy: 380 terawatts-hour of electricity was produced from nuclear plants that year, while wind energy represented almost 28 TWh. In France, nuclear energy accounted for 71.6 percent of the total power generation in 2017 and has been the main source of electricity production since the 1990s.  

The important share of nuclear power in French electricity production

Concerning the use of nuclear energy for electricity production, the French production follows a different path than its neighbor Germany. Since 2000 and the first versions of the nuclear phase-out laws, Germany has decreased the nuclear share in its energy mix from 29.5 to 11.7 percent in 2017. However, it appears that French public opinion tends to express fewer support to nuclear power generation: 34 percent of surveyed in 2018 stated being rather opposed to the production of energy from nuclear plants. 

Renewable energy capacities in France

Another survey conducted in 2017 reveals that almost half of French respondents considered that investing in the development of renewable energies should be a priority for investments of the electricity sector. According to the IRENA Statistics, the capacity of renewable energy in France went from around 27 thousands megawatts in 2008 to more than 46 thousand megawatts in 2017, representing an increasing trend of renewable energy production.