| Waste | The nuclear generation of 1MWh of electricity (equivalent to the monthly consumption of two households) produces around 11g of total waste across all categories.Short-lived waste represents more than 90% of the total, but contains only 0.1% of the radioactivity of waste. Accordingly, based on their level of radioactivity, they are separated into two sub-categories: Low-Level waste and Very-Low-Level waste.Long-Lived Medium and High-Level waste are produced in low quantity (less than 10% of the total quantity), but they contain almost all of the radioactivity of the waste (99.9%). |
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| Plant availability | Fraction of power available, out of theoretical maximum energy, counting only technical unavailability. The availability coefficient (Kd) is defined as the ratio between annual actual generation capacity (or amount producible annually) and maximum theoretical generation capacity, where maximum theoretical generation capacity = installed capacity × 8,760 hours. The Kd, which counts only technical non-availability, i.e., scheduled shutdowns, unplanned outages and testing periods, characterises a plant’s industrial performance. |
| Disruption | Voluntary reduction of electrical power by a customer, in exchange for compensation. It is called “diffused” when it is due to the aggregation of small consumption sites. |
| LDC | French Local Distribution Companies. LDCs sell and deliver electrical energy to end users located in their exclusive service area. |
| Renewable energies | Energies for which production does not require extinction of the initial resource. They include hydro, wind, solar, marine (the energy produced by marine waves and currents), geothermal (energy derived from the heat below the earth’s magma) energies, and bio-mass (energy derived from living matter, particularly wood and organic waste). They often include energy from the incineration of household or industrial waste. |
| Enrichment | Process to increase the fissile content of an element. In its natural state, uranium is 0.7% uranium 235 (fissile) and 99.3% uranium 238 (non fissile). To enable its efficient use in a pressurised water reactor, it is enriched with uranium 235 whose proportion is increased to around 4%. |
| Intermediate Storage | Intermediate stage in the process of managing nuclear waste. It involves placing waste packages in a facility to ensure, for a given period of time, their isolation from contact with man and the environment with the intention of retrieving them for a further stage in the waste management process. Intermediate storage facilities are designed, built and managed by the producers of such waste (EDF, AREVA NC (ex-COGEMA) and CEA) and are close to areas where waste is conditioned. |
| EPR | European Pressurised Reactor. The latest generation of reactors currently under construction (known as “generation 3”), it is the result of Franco-German cooperation, and offers advanced safety, environmental and technical performance. |
| Fluorination (conversion) | Also called “conversion”, fluorination allows for the purification of uranium compounds and their transformation into uranium hexafluoride (UF6), allowing their enrichment using current techniques. |
| Electricity supply | Electricity demand can be broken down into four types of consumption:
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| Greenhouse gases (GHG) | Gas that retains a portion of the solar radiation in the atmosphere and for which an increase in emissions due to human activity (man-made emissions) causes an increase in the earth’s average temperature and plays an important role in climate change. The Kyoto Protocol covers the seven following principal greenhouse gases: carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), nitrogen protoxide (N2O), hydrofluorocarbons (HFC), perfluorated hydrocarbons (PFC), sulfurhexafluoride (SF6) and, since 2013, nitrogen trifluoride (NF3). |
| Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) | Natural gas turned into liquid form by reducing its temperature to 162°C allowing for a reduction by 600 in its volume. |
| Man-sievert | Unit expressing the collective equivalent dose. A man-sievert is the collective dose from exposure of 1,000 men to 1mSv (milliesievert). |
| INB | Basic Nuclear Facilities. |
| Interconnection | Electricity transmission infrastructure that allows for exchanges of energy between different countries, by connecting the transmission network of one country to that of a neighbouring country. |
| Balancing Mechanism | Created by RTE on 1 April 2003, the balancing mechanism allows it to use power reserves that can be mobilised in the event of an imbalance between supply and demand. |
| Microgrid | Microgrids are small power grids designed to provide a reliable supply of electricity to a small number of consumers. They combine multiple local and diffuse production facilities, consumption facilities, storage facilities and tools for supervision and demand management. They can be connected directly to a distribution network or operate disconnected from the network (islanding). |
| MW − MWh | The megawatt-hour (MWh) is the energy unit generated by a facility and is equal to the facilities’ power, expressed in megawatts (MW), multiplied by the duration of operations in hours. 1MW = 1,000 kilowatts = 1 million watts 1MWh = 1MW produced for 1 hour = 1 megawatt-hour 1GW = 1,000MW = 1 billion watts 1TW = 1,000GW |
| MWh cumac | The MWh cumac is the certificate energy unit of counting which corresponds to the cumulative energy savings aggregated on the operations’ lifetime. |
| Series | In the nuclear field, a series of plants means a set of nuclear plants with identical generation capacity. EDF’s PWR model is divided into three series of available electrical power: the 900-MW series (34 tranches of approximately 900MW each), the 1,300-MW series (20 tranches) and the 1,450-MW series (4 tranches). |
| Plutonium (Pu) | Element with the atomic number of 94 (number of protons) and no naturally occurring isotopes (elements whose atoms possess the same number of electrons and protons − thus the same chemical properties − but a different number of neutrons). Plutonium 239, a fissile isotope, is produced in nuclear reactors from uranium 238. |
| Producible hydropower generation | Maximum energy that hydropower facilities may produce using contributions under normal hydraulicity conditions. However, generation from hydroelectric facilities does vary, sometimes markedly, from one year to the next depending on hydraulicity (rainfall and snowfall). In dry years, the generation index may vary by 20% or more from the standard level. |
