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Scanning European outage signalsFrance has ~12,300 MW of generation capacity flagged offline — 5.9× the peer median and more than the next four countries combined. Normalize by installed fleet size, however, and Sweden (93 MW/GW) takes the top spot, carrying 5.5× the median density. The reshuffled ranking reveals two very different supply-squeeze stories: one of sheer scale, one of concentrated vulnerability.
Data source notice: This analysis is based on publicly available ENTSO-E Transparency Platform data. Latency patterns described here are observations from public disclosure records and do not constitute regulatory findings or determinations of wrongdoing.
Sweden shoulders the highest offline burden per gigawatt of installed capacity — a concentration that eclipses even France’s large absolute outage total once you adjust for fleet size. France still leads in raw megawatt terms, but the two rankings expose different supply‑squeeze stories: one driven by sheer megawatt mass inside a giant nuclear fleet, the other by concentrated unavailability in a far smaller system.
France accounts for the largest share of offline generation among the ten countries surveyed — far above the sample median and exceeding the combined offline totals of the next four nations.
The outsized absolute number flows directly from France’s large nuclear fleet, where the summer refuelling window bundles multiple large planned outages. The snapshot captured, for example, a 1,500 MW unit offline from 12 June to 24 June, a 1,273 MW unit from 22 June to 29 June and an 800 MW unit from 19 June through 1 August. Each event is seasonally normal, but their simultaneous presence pushes the outage book far above any peer.
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When offline megawatts are expressed as a density — MW unavailable per GW of a country’s total installed fleet — Sweden leaps to first place, followed by the Netherlands, while France, despite its enormous absolute load, slips behind. Germany, with Europe’s largest renewables base, registers a far lower density.
The reshuffle reveals two distinct dynamics. France’s problem is scale — a gigantic fleet can produce a huge offline total even at a moderate per‑gigawatt rate. Sweden’s problem is concentration: because its installed base is far smaller, any large outage translates into a proportionally far heavier load.
European nuclear fleets overwhelmingly schedule refuelling and maintenance campaigns during the lower‑demand spring‑to‑autumn period, concentrating large‑unit outages inside a narrow seasonal window. France’s large nuclear fleet alone generates a deep pool of planned events, which is the primary reason its absolute offline figure far surpasses peers. Several French reactors with extended durations stand out: the 800 MW unit from 19 June to 1 August (about six weeks), the 1,500 MW unit from 12 June to 24 June (12 days), and the 1,273 MW unit out for a week in late June. None of these outages is unusual in isolation, but together they propel France’s total decisively above the pack.
Sweden’s nuclear refuelling programme is smaller in absolute terms yet places two large units into extended maintenance: a 1,121 MW unit from 12 April to 26 June (roughly 2.5 months) and a 1,065 MW unit from 4 May to 30 August (nearly four months). Because Sweden’s installed fleet is compact, the length and magnitude of these outages carry an outsized weight when expressed as a density.
Sweden’s outage tally also includes a transmission‑related unavailability on the Sweden‑Finland interconnector, running for an extended period over the summer months. That cross‑border capacity removal takes away import‑hedging ability that would otherwise be available for system balancing. The interconnector event, layered on top of the extended nuclear refuelling, drives Sweden’s density to the highest in the sample and leaves the system with a markedly thinner margin than its absolute megawatt count implies.
Track whether Sweden’s nuclear unit currently scheduled to return on 26 June meets that deadline. A slip into July would push the outage deeper into the summer hydro‑reservoir drawdown period, tightening the Nordic balance. For France, monitor the large planned outages with end‑dates scattered through July and August; any extension of those multi‑month maintenance events into the autumn demand ramp would sustain the disproportionately large absolute load. The Swedish unit not expected back until 30 August is a further tail risk. If both the Swedish return date slips and French summer outages stretch toward autumn, two structurally different systems would converge on the same supply‑tightness signal, compressing spare capacity just when resurgent demand raises the stakes for both markets.