France's AI data centres: nuclear power, grid access and pledges

France has cheap, low carbon electricity, mostly from nuclear plants, and its grid operator has already allocated 14 GW of transmission access to data centres. Actual data centre consumption is still small. Eurostat shows French power for very large industrial users at about half the German price. The open questions are speed, new reactors, the new market rules that replaced regulated nuclear access, and whether pledges become buildings.

This article gathers the numbers from France's grid operator, the energy regulator, EDF, Eurostat and public reporting, with an as-of date beside each figure. It is explanatory, not investment advice. Where a figure comes from a company, a news report or a pledge rather than an audited result, it says so.

Key numbers at a glance

• Mainland French electricity generation in 2025: 547.5 TWh (terawatt hours), of which nuclear 373.0 TWh, about 68% (RTE Annual Electricity Review 2025; the share is calculated from RTE's two figures).
• Low carbon share of generation in 2025: 95.2% (RTE).
• Net electricity exports in 2025: 92.3 TWh, after 89 TWh in 2024, equal to 17% of French output (RTE).
• Average spot price in 2025: 61 euros per MWh, versus 58 in 2024. Negative price hours: 513, versus 352 in 2024 (RTE).
• Transmission grid access rights allocated by the end of November 2025: about 30 GW, including 14 GW for data centres, 9.5 GW for hydrogen and 6.5 GW for industrial electrification (RTE).
• Data centres connected at dedicated sites on the transmission grid used almost 1 TWh in 2025, up from about 0.8 TWh in 2024 (RTE).
• Total connection capacity of those transmission connected data centres at the end of December 2025: 770 MW. Average use of that capacity: 22% (RTE).
• Electricity price for very large industrial users in the second half of 2025: 7.15 euro cents per kWh in France, against 14.40 in Germany and 12.17 for the EU average, excluding VAT and recoverable taxes (Eurostat, updated 16 October 2026).
• Private AI investment announced at the Paris AI Action Summit, 11 February 2025: 109 billion euros, French and foreign (Élysée transcript of the President's remarks). These are pledges, not spending.
• Flamanville 3 reactor: first connected to the grid on 21 December 2024, reached 100% thermal power for the first time on 14 December 2025 with 1,669 MW gross electrical output (EDF press releases).
• Six planned EPR2 reactors: forecast cost of 72.8 billion euros in 2020 euros, first unit at Penly targeted for 2038, final investment decision expected in late 2026 (EDF, 18 December 2025, updated 19 January 2026).
• ARENH, the regulated access to historic nuclear output, ended on 31 December 2025. Its successor taxes 50% of EDF's historic nuclear revenue above 78 euros per MWh and 90% above 110 euros per MWh (CRE deliberation of 16 December 2025).
• Nuclear production allocation contracts (CAPN): 1,800 MW offered, about 10.6 TWh a year, for 10 or 15 years, delivery from 1 January 2027 (EDF, 13 November 2025).

A few terms first

A TWh is a billion kilowatt hours, the unit for annual electricity. A GW, or gigawatt, is a million kilowatts, a unit of power at a moment. For scale, France's peak demand in 2025 was 88 GW, the highest since 2021, according to RTE.

RTE is Réseau de Transport d'Electricité, the operator of France's high voltage transmission grid. Enedis runs most of the local distribution grid. CRE, the Commission de régulation de l'énergie, is the energy regulator. Transmission access rights are reservations of capacity on the high voltage grid. They are not electricity sold and they do not mean a plant is built.

A PPA, or power purchase agreement, is a long term contract to buy power from a specific generator. A contract for difference (CfD) is a state backed contract that pays a generator the gap between an agreed price and the market price, and takes back the difference if the market is higher. EPR stands for European Pressurised Reactor, a large reactor design, and EPR2 is the planned simplified successor. ARENH (accès régulé à l'électricité nucléaire historique) was the scheme that let suppliers and large consumers buy part of EDF's historic nuclear output at a regulated price.

Why France looks attractive for data centres

RTE's own description is direct. France has a high quality grid, abundant low carbon electricity and industrial zones well connected to telecom networks. The numbers back up the first part. In 2025, nuclear produced 373.0 TWh, which RTE reports as an increase of 11.3 TWh on the year, while hydro fell by 12.9 TWh to 62.4 TWh because of weather. Solar added 8.1 TWh and wind 2.8 TWh. Installed solar capacity reached 30.4 GW at the end of the year, overtaking hydro capacity of 25.7 GW. The power sector's emissions were 10.9 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent, the lowest since 1945 for the third year running, and carbon intensity averaged 19.6 grams per kWh, according to RTE.

The political case was made in the same terms. In remarks at Station F on 11 February 2025, published by the Élysée, President Macron said France had about thirty connectable sites for data centres, prepared with the regions, state services, RTE and EDF, and pointed to roughly 90 TWh of electricity exported the previous year as spare capacity that could serve computing. RTE's own figure for 2024 net exports is 89 TWh, so the two are consistent.

For a company building AI capacity, low carbon power matters for reasons beyond branding. Many large customers set targets for the emissions attached to the electricity their cloud workloads use. A grid with 95.2% low carbon generation makes those targets easier to meet than a grid with a large fossil share, though the claim depends on how the operator accounts for electricity and whether it buys certificates or has contracts for specific plants.

Price is the second part of the case. Eurostat's figures for the second half of 2025, excluding VAT and recoverable taxes, show French industrial power at 15.34 cents per kWh for mid-sized users, against 22.64 in Germany and 18.37 for the EU. For very large users, the band closest to a big data centre, France paid 7.15 cents, Germany 14.40 and the EU 12.17. For very large users the French price fell from 8.20 cents in the first half of 2025 to 7.15 in the second. Eurostat prices are what users actually paid, and they depend on contracts and taxes, so a particular site's cost can differ. A related post, Germany's AI data centres, power prices and rules, lays out the other side of this comparison.

One more feature is relevant. RTE reports that in 2025 France had 513 hours of negative prices, up from 352 in 2024, and 1,807 hours at or above 100 euros per MWh, up from 1,382. A negative price means producers pay to deliver power, which happens when supply is high and demand is low. A system with both many negative hours and many very high price hours is one where flexible demand can be valuable. No public source reviewed for this article states that French data centres are paid for flexibility, so treat that as an observation about the market, not a fact about contracts.

How much power do French data centres actually use?

Less than the headlines suggest. RTE's annual review states that data centres at dedicated transmission connected sites used almost 1 TWh in 2025, up from around 0.8 TWh in 2024, and that this consumption has roughly doubled over 2021 to 2025, driven by data storage, processing and AI. Data centres on the Enedis distribution network added about 3 TWh in 2024, and the ministry's statistics service estimated total data centre use at around 4 to 6 TWh in 2023, according to RTE. Total French consumption was 451 TWh on a weather and calendar adjusted basis in 2025.

To put that in proportion, 1 TWh against 451 TWh is about 0.2% of French demand for the transmission connected sites. Even the high end of the 2023 estimate, 6 TWh, is about 1.3% of the 2025 consumption figure, although the two numbers are for different years and come from different methods, so the comparison is rough.

The structure of the sector explains part of this. RTE reports that connection capacities for these facilities range from 40 to 240 MW each, that most sit in the Île-de-France region around Paris, and that total connection capacity was 770 MW at the end of December 2025. The same review says the facilities use on average 22% of their connection capacity. New data centres ramp up slowly, and RTE notes the gap between reserved and used capacity can persist for several years.

Why does that matter? Because the reserved capacity is what the grid has to plan for. If every developer reserves more than it ever uses, the queue looks longer than the real demand.

The grid access queue: 14 GW for data centres

The most striking figure in RTE's review is not consumption but reservations. By the end of November 2025, about 30 GW of transmission access rights had been allocated. Of that, 14 GW were for data centres, 9.5 GW for hydrogen and 6.5 GW for industrial electrification.

Compare 14 GW with 770 MW of connected data centre capacity at the end of December 2025. Allocated access is roughly 18 times the capacity connected today. That does not mean 14 GW will be built. It means developers have reserved a place in line, and RTE has allocated it. Some projects will slip, shrink or never happen. RTE notes that the investments announced at the February 2025 AI Action Summit and the November 2025 Choose France event could sustain growth in data centre consumption.

Two cautions. First, RTE's review does not give a breakdown of the 14 GW by project, location or date, and it does not describe the connection rules. Second, access rights allocated are not a forecast of consumption. The 22% utilisation figure is a reminder that average draw is a fraction of reserved capacity.

Some of the projects behind the queue are now public. EDF launched a call for expressions of interest on 3 March 2025 for very high power data centres on land it owns. On 17 November 2025 EDF said it had entered exclusive negotiations with OpCore, a joint venture of the iliad Group and funds managed by InfraVia, for a data centre of several hundred megawatts on the site of the former Montereau coal plant south east of Paris, with about 4 billion euros of investment and initial commissioning scheduled for 2027. EDF said the project would use the fast track grid connection procedure for strategic intensive computing projects. On 30 May 2026 EDF named SoftBank Group preferred bidder for a 400 MW data centre at its former Bouchain thermal plant site, still subject to due diligence and permits. Neither release gives a firm completion date.

The European Commission's proposed Cloud and AI Development Act, published on 3 June 2026, touches the same issue. Its text says it complements an EU grids package that considers a project's readiness and grid friendly use, rather than pure first come first served, when structuring connection queues. It is a proposal, not law, and it is still going through Parliament and Council.

Nuclear: the backbone and the open questions

Nuclear produced about 68% of French generation in 2025, and the French fleet is the reason prices for large users are low. Four questions follow.

Is the existing fleet reliable? RTE says 2025 nuclear output rose to close to its 2019 level thanks to improved availability of the fleet, after strong growth in 2023 and 2024 that it attributes mainly to renewed availability of the reactors. EDF's guidance, published with its half year results on 31 July 2026, estimates French nuclear output at 350 to 370 TWh for 2026 and 2027 and 345 to 375 TWh for 2028, including Flamanville 3. EDF reported 189.9 TWh of French nuclear output in the first half of 2026.

What about new build? Flamanville 3, France's newest reactor, was first connected to the national grid at 11:48 on 21 December 2024, producing 100 MW, according to EDF. EDF said on 14 December 2025 that the reactor had reached 100% nuclear thermal power for the first time that day, generating 1,669 MW of gross electrical power, after the nuclear safety authority approved going beyond 80% two days earlier. Testing at varying power levels continued after that milestone.

The cost has been much discussed. In a report published on 14 January 2025, the Cour des comptes, the national audit court, put the total cost at completion of Flamanville 3 at 20.4 billion euros in 2015 euros, about 23.7 billion in 2023 euros, as reported by AFP. That is above EDF's own figure of 19.3 billion in 2015 euros and above the court's 2020 estimate of 19.1 billion. The original budget was 3.3 billion euros.

For the next generation, EDF said on 18 December 2025 that the forecast cost of six EPR2 reactors at Penly, Gravelines and Bugey stands at 72.8 billion euros in 2020 euros, to be audited by the interministerial delegation for new nuclear in the first quarter of 2026. The first reactor, at Penly, is targeted for 2038, with the others following at intervals of 12 to 18 months. That is later than the target set by the Nuclear Policy Council in February 2023, which, according to the Élysée, aimed for first commissioning by 2035 at the latest. AFP's report on the audit court's work noted an earlier EDF estimate, from late 2023, of 67.4 billion euros excluding inflation.

The financing model, according to EDF, combines a subsidised state loan covering at least half of construction costs, a 40 year contract for difference and risk sharing between the state and EDF. Energy Intelligence reported in March 2025 that the CfD would carry a maximum strike price of 100 euros per MWh. EDF says the general principles were approved in June 2025 and the measures were submitted to the European Commission for state aid approval on 19 November 2025. On 12 March 2026 EDF said the fifth Nuclear Policy Council, held at the Penly site, reaffirmed the six reactor plan and its financing principles, which remain subject to Commission approval.

Is the final investment decision taken? EDF said in December 2025 that it expects the decision in late 2026. A final investment decision had not been confirmed by EDF or the government as of 19 October 2026. In its January 2025 report the Cour des comptes recommended holding the EPR2 final investment decision until financing is secured and detailed design studies have advanced, according to AFP and NucNet.

What replaced the old regulated price? ARENH, created by the law of 7 December 2010, ended on 31 December 2025, according to CRE. From 1 January 2026 the suppliers and large consumers that relied on ARENH volumes buy on the market or from their own generation, and EDF sells all its historic nuclear output at wholesale prices. The protection for consumers is now a mechanism called the versement nucléaire universel (VNU), set up by article 17 of the 2025 finance law. CRE describes two parts. A tax on the use of nuclear fuel takes 50% of the revenue from EDF's historic fleet above a first threshold and 90% above a second. The proceeds are returned as a reduction on the bills of all final electricity consumers with a supply contract.

The thresholds are tied to cost. CRE assessed the full cost of historic nuclear generation at 60.3 euros per MWh in 2026 euros for 2026 to 2028, and its deliberation of 16 December 2025 records that the draft order sets the two thresholds at 78 and 110 euros per MWh. In practice, the VNU only pays out when wholesale prices are high. CRE's separate opinion, published on 18 December 2025, notes that the mechanism is not applied at all if the unit rebate would be below 1 euro per MWh.

The second post ARENH tool is contractual. EDF has offered nuclear production allocation contracts, known as CAPN, since the end of 2023. A buyer receives a share of the fleet's actual output and shares its costs and risks, with prices based on fleet costs rather than the wholesale market. On 13 November 2025 EDF widened eligibility beyond energy intensive industry to final consumers using more than 7 GWh a year, licensed suppliers and producers, for 10 or 15 year terms, with 1,800 MW available, about 10.6 TWh a year, and delivery from 1 January 2027. Data centres are already among the buyers. AFP reported on 4 September 2025 that EDF had signed a 12 year CAPN with the operator Data4 for 40 MW of fleet capacity from 2026, one of four firm CAPN contracts at that date, alongside 15 letters of intent.

For a data centre buyer, this changes the question. The cheap nuclear electricity is no longer delivered through a regulated price. It reaches buyers through market purchases, a rebate that only activates at high prices, or a long term contract with EDF.

The pledges: what was announced, and what is built

At the AI Action Summit in Paris on 10 and 11 February 2025, President Macron said France had secured 109 billion euros of French and foreign private investment for AI, according to the Élysée's transcript of his remarks at Station F on 11 February. He named Iliad, Orange, Thales and Stellantis among French companies and Brookfield and MGX among international investors. SiliconANGLE reported the breakdown as 30 to 50 billion euros from the UAE, with MGX expected to provide initial financing, 20 billion from Brookfield, 10 billion from Bpifrance and 3 billion from Iliad.

Be careful with the word pledge. These are announcements by investors and companies. No public source reviewed for this article gives a total of what has been spent since February 2025, and the Élysée transcript does not give delivery schedules or megawatts. Some individual projects have moved further. The OpCore and SoftBank sites described above are on EDF land, and Iliad is OpCore's parent.

Mistral is the clearest case with a recent public source. Euronews reported on 8 September 2026 that Mistral raised 3 billion euros in a Series D led by Samsung Electronics, at a reported valuation of over 21 billion euros. The company's chief executive said most of the money would go to data centres and computing capacity, and that Mistral is already spending 4 billion euros on data centres across France and Europe, with one facility outside Paris and another under construction in Sweden. Those are company statements, and Mistral's figures are unaudited. A related post, Mistral and sovereign AI compute, covers that company in more depth.

On the public computing side, the European Commission's AI Factories page lists one French AI Factory, AI2F, and the EuroHPC page notes the Alice Recoque exascale system in France. The EuroHPC call for AI Gigafactories, launched on 30 July 2026 and closing on 12 November 2026, does not name any site. EDF said on 21 May 2026 that Ardian, Artefact, Bull, Capgemini, EDF, the iliad Group, Orange and Scaleway had formed the AION consortium to bid for a European AI gigafactory in France. That release gives no site, capacity or investment figure.

What is firm and what is uncertain

Firm, because the operator, the regulator or an official body published it:

• RTE's 2025 consumption, generation, export, price and data centre figures, including the 14 GW of access rights and the 770 MW connected.
• Eurostat's price figures for the second half of 2025.
• The end of ARENH on 31 December 2025 and the structure of the VNU, as described by CRE.
• The Flamanville 3 grid connection and full power dates, and the 72.8 billion euro EPR2 estimate, from EDF.
• The gigafactory call dates.

Reported but not audited:

• The Flamanville 3 cost from the Cour des comptes, as reported by AFP.
• The February 2025 pledge breakdown, which comes from a news report. The 109 billion euro total is in the Élysée transcript.
• The Data4 CAPN, reported by AFP.

Uncertain or not confirmed:

• How much of the 14 GW of reserved access will be built, and when.
• Whether the EPR2 final investment decision will be taken in 2026, and the Commission's state aid ruling.
• How many data centres will contract through CAPN, and whether the VNU pays out in a given year.
• How much of the 2025 pledges has been spent.
• Mistral's figures, which are company statements.

What to watch next

• 12 November 2026. Gigafactory applications close. Watch where the AION consortium proposes to build and whether other French bids appear.
• Early 2027. Gigafactory selections.
• EPR2 decision. The EDF final investment decision, expected by EDF in late 2026, and the European Commission's state aid ruling.
• 1 January 2027. First deliveries under the widened CAPN offer.
• RTE's next review. The 2026 consumption figures for dedicated site data centres, which will show whether growth is speeding up from the 2025 level of almost 1 TWh.
• The Cloud and AI Development Act. Its progress through Parliament and Council, including the grid connection and permitting provisions.
• Eurostat prices. The first half of 2026 release will show whether the French price advantage for large users holds after the end of ARENH.

What this means in practice

For a buyer of AI infrastructure in France, the advantages are real, namely low carbon power, a price below the EU average for large users and a strong grid. The risks are about timing and contract structure. Grid access rights are plentiful on paper, but connected capacity is only 770 MW, and new data centres ramp up slowly. Since ARENH ended, the route to nuclear priced electricity is a contract, not a regulated tariff. Ask any provider for the contracted connection date, the share of capacity already energised and how the site's power is contracted, including whether a CAPN or another long term agreement is in place.

Software teams feel this indirectly through where workloads land and what auditors ask. Safeguard's SBOM and dependency scanning can be tried with a free scan at https://gold.safeguard.sh/scan.

Quick check

Sources

• Annual Electricity Review 2025, key findings, RTE, accessed 19 October 2026
• Annual Electricity Review 2025, consumption and data centres, RTE, accessed 19 October 2026
• Electricity prices for non-household consumers, bi-annual data, dataset nrg_pc_205, Eurostat, updated 16 October 2026
• Business Day du Sommet pour l'action sur l'intelligence artificielle à Station F, Élysée, 11 February 2025
• France AI investment pledges, report, SiliconANGLE, 10 February 2025
• Update on the Flamanville EPR: the reactor produces its first electrons on the national electricity grid, EDF, 21 December 2024
• Update on the Flamanville EPR: the reactor has reached 100% of nuclear thermal power, EDF, 14 December 2025
• EDF shares its forecasted cost estimate of the EPR2 programme for 72.8bn euros, EDF, 18 December 2025, updated 19 January 2026
• French nuclear industry stakeholders welcome the outcomes of the fifth Nuclear Policy Council, EDF, 12 March 2026
• 2026 half-year results, EDF, 31 July 2026
• Conseil de Politique Nucléaire, Élysée, 3 February 2023
• Weekly Roundup, Energy Intelligence, 21 March 2025
• Programme d'EPR: la Cour des comptes publie un rapport critique et recalcule le coût de Flamanville 3, AFP via Connaissance des Énergies, 14 January 2025
• France far from ready to build six new nuclear power plants, state auditor warns, NucNet, 15 January 2025
• Délibération n°2025-268 portant avis sur le projet de décret relatif aux conditions d'application du versement nucléaire universel, CRE, 16 December 2025
• La CRE publie son avis sur le projet de décret relatif aux conditions d'application du versement nucléaire universel, CRE, 18 December 2025
• EDF expands the scope of eligible participants for nuclear production allocation contracts (CAPN), EDF, 13 November 2025
• Après Lafarge, EDF signe un contrat avec un opérateur de data centers, AFP via Connaissance des Énergies, 4 September 2025
• EDF and OpCore to develop a high-power data center in Montereau-Vallée-de-la-Seine, EDF, 17 November 2025
• EDF selects SoftBank Group as preferred bidder for a large-scale data center at its Bouchain site, EDF, 30 May 2026
• Ardian, Artefact, Bull, EDF, Capgemini, the iliad Group, Orange and Scaleway run as a candidate for a European AI gigafactory in France, EDF, 21 May 2026
• Mistral AI raises record 3 billion euros in Samsung-led funding round, Euronews, 8 September 2026
• AI Factories, European Commission, last updated 12 August 2026
• EuroHPC Joint Undertaking launches AI Gigafactories call, EuroHPC JU, 30 July 2026
• Cloud and AI Development Act proposal, COM(2026) 502, European Commission (copy hosted by the Dutch Eerste Kamer), 3 June 2026

Last reviewed: 19 October 2026.