Séminaire équipe SYREL

Summary
Power system ensure a balance between electricity production and consumption at all times. This balance is constrained by the load variations over the day and the year. The massive penetration of renewable energy sources (RES), such as wind and photovoltaic that are variable and not "dispatchable", may weaken this supply-demand balance. Furthermore, the ultimate removal of thermal power plants in favour of the increasing integration of these variable RES reflects French and European strategies to reduce CO2 emissions. Nuclear power plants contribute in part to this daily and seasonal balance thanks to the "load-following" mode, but there are still limits to their use. These limits prevent a nuclear power modulation as efficient and quickly as the conventional thermal power plants, which are preferred during strong disturbances of the network and for rapid stability control.
The objective of the PhD thesis is to study the stresses due to high penetration of RES on the power system, then to include their requirements in the design of a nuclear reactor potential with high flexibility. So that it can participate more actively in the permanent balance of electricity supply and demand, frequency control (especially primary control), and in the integration of variable RES on the grid. The innovative approach consists in the fact that the design of the reactor will take into account the constraints of the electrical networks. Therefore, the methodology presents two distinct sections: one part dealing with the definition of network constraints and another part on modelling a so-called flexible reactor.