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France temporarily shuts down three nuclear reactors over heatwave
(www.france24.com)
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this post was submitted on 12 Jul 2026
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Climate
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They can't replace nuclear, at least not without insanely huge energy storage.
Solar panels would help with the peaks. They don’t need to replace the nuclear plants but deal with air conditioning.
They would certainly help, but there is more energy demand than just AC during the day.
We have a large number of rooftop solar systems in Australia (as well as batteries) and they provide a large part of the daily need. The batteries have reduced the evening peak as well. As it is all getting cheaper, it makes senese.
https://cleanenergycouncil.org.au/news-resources/rooftop-solar-and-storage-report-july-to-dec-2025
Its not insane at all, in fact battery based energy storage is already keeping black outs from happening in California. Batteries are currently on an exponential tech development curve, so in 5 years data becomes obsolete. The result of that is we have people thinking Europe can't use battery grid storage to help easy nuclear maintaince down time.
Let's see, a smaller nuclear power plant operates at 1GW, that means you'd need to store 12GWh per day (plus 12 of direct use) assuming half day solar doesn't yield, or more with cloudy days and long winter nights. Where do we have such energy storage?
Here's a chart of average daily generation in the NEM (Australian south/east network) over the last 28 days. The dark blue bit is battery charging (average just over 13GWh per day). The dip below the zero line during midday is when batteries and pumped hydro are charged using the excess of solar power.
Speaking of excess of solar power, we have three hours of free power during the day because there is so much free solar that isn't being stored.
China’s grid-scale battery energy storage capacity surged from just 2.4 gigawatts in 2020 to more than 140 gigawatts in 2025
Chinese nuclear power output is 62GW, which means you'd need 12h*62GW for simplistic optimistic night worth of energy. Which is 744GWh. But realistically you have to look at worst case scenario during long winter nights and cloudy days. Which is a lot more storage required and less solar power output. And batteries get degraded over time, some malfunction etc.
First, Nuclear power plants degrade much faster and at a higher cost than solar/batteries. Its the moving parts simplification. Its a major factor in why we replaced relays with transistors. Senond, you need to do some new research that reflects current technology. China will absolutely produce that amount of grid storage. Look up their production curve its insane.
"Where do we have such energy storage?" - You're asking for overnight replacement with something that currently exists!