| IAEA |
International Atomic Energy Agency based in Vienna (Austria). |
| ANDRA |
National agency for radioactive waste. In France, radioactive waste is managed by the National Agency for Radioactive Waste Management (ANDRA), a public industrial and commercial institution created under the French law of 30 December 1991. |
| ASN |
Nuclear safety authority. For a detailed description of the ASN’s remits, please refer to section 1.4.1.1.2.1. |
| Assembly/Fuel |
Nuclear fuel is in the form of an assembly made up of an array of 264 fuel rods, bound together by a rigid structure made of tubes and grids. Each fuel rod consists of a water-tight zirconium tube into which uranium oxide pellets are piled, constituting the fuel. The assemblies are loaded side by side into the reactor vessel − 205 assemblies are required for a 1,500MW reactor − to make up the core of the reactor. During operation, these assemblies are crossed by bottom to top with primary water which heats on contact and carries this energy to the steam generators. |
| Becquerel (Bq) |
International legal unit for measuring radioactivity. The Becquerel (Bq) is equal to one disintegration per second. The activity represented by this unit is so low that multiples of it are used: the MBq (megabecquerel or million Becquerels) and the GBq (gigabecquerel or billion Becquerels). |
| Biogas |
Gas generated from the fermentation of organic animal or plant matter |
| Biomass |
Technologies based on biomass mainly consists of burning certain types of waste, particularly from the timber and farming industries, or exploiting wood fuel forests, to produce heat or electricity. |
| Cogeneration |
Generation technique for combined electricity and heat generation. The advantage of cogeneration is the ability to capture the heat produced by the fuel whereas in traditional electricity generation this heat is lost. This process also allows the same facility to meet the heating (hot water or steam) and electricity needs of both industrial and local authority customers. This system improves the energy efficiency of the generation process and reduces fuel use by an average of 20%. |
| Metering |
A system allowing for the recording, at a given network connection point, of the volumes of electricity transmitted or distributed (power, frequency, active and reactive energy). |
| Congestion |
Situation in which an interconnection linking the national transmission grids cannot absorb all of the physical flows resulting from international exchanges required by market operators due to a shortage of capacity in the interconnection and/or the national transmission grids involved. |
| CRE |
French energy regulatory Commission. See section 1.4.2.1.1. |
| Combined-Cycle Gas |
The most recent technology for generating electricity in a natural gas-fired plant. A combined cycle is made up of one or more combustion turbines and a steam turbine allowing for an improved yield. The syngas is routed to the combustion turbine, which generates electricity and very hot exhaust gases (effluents). The heat from the exhaust gases is recovered by a boiler, thus producing steam. Part of the steam is then recovered by the steam turbine to generate electricity. |
| Fuel Cycle |
The nuclear fuel cycle encompasses all industrial operations in France and abroad which enable the supply of the fuel to generate energy in a reactor, then to unload and process it. See section 1.4.1.1.2.3. |
| 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%). |
| 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 water 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:
- the “basic” (or “ribbon”) supply of electricity, which is generated and consumed throughout the year;
- “semi-basic” supply is the electricity generated and consumed over the winter period;
- “peak” supply corresponds to periods of the year when electricity generation or supply is in heavy demand;
- “lace” supply is a complement to “ribbon” supply.
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