Golfech

Golfech is the only nuclear power station in the Occitanie region and the most southerly on the French mainland, sitting on the Garonne in Tarn-et-Garonne. Its two REP 1300 pressurised-water reactors, commissioned in 1991 and 1993, give a combined 2,620 MW of capacity and place it among the twelve two-unit stations in EDF's 1,300 MW class, the most common reactor type in France's fleet.

Because the Garonne is smaller and runs warmer in summer than the Rhône or Loire, which host most of France's other 1,300 MW units, Golfech is more exposed than its sister plants to the 28°c river-discharge ceiling that French environmental regulation imposes on cooling water. When the river nears that limit the plant must cut or halt output regardless of reactor availability, a constraint that has now recurred in successive summers rather than as a one-off .

That hydrology sensitivity matters beyond the plant itself: Golfech sits within EDF's 56-reactor fleet, the backbone of France's role as continental Europe's largest nuclear exporter and the reason French day-ahead power normally clears below Germany's. Each Golfech curtailment removes low-cost supply from a market that watches the plant as a bellwether for how FAR climate-driven river limits can erode that price advantage.