The line graph compares the amount of electricity produced, in terawatt hours, in France using thermal, nuclear, hydroelectric, and renewable sources from the year 1980 to 2012.
Overall, nuclear power was by far the most popular means of energy production for most of the period, while renewables did not have a considerable share in the industry. Thermal and hydroelectric power plants, on the other hand, generated approximately equal amount of electricity almost every year.
Regarding nuclear power and renewables, the former was used to generate only around 60 TW-h of electricity in 1980; however, it soon became the most common source of energy in the country, and its figures continued to rise rapidly and peaked at approximately 430 TW-h in 2005. Over the next 7 years, they experienced a downward fluctuation and settled at just over 400 TW-h in 2012. As for the latter, their contribution was negligible until 2005, after which it saw a steady rise and reached about 30 TW-h at the end of the period.
In terms of thermal and hydroelectric powers, the figure for thermal energy was the highest at around 110 TW-h initially, but after experiencing a downward trend for nearly a decade, it began to fluctuate in the vicinity of 50 TW-h during the subsequent years. Hydroelectricity production, on the other hand, remained relatively constant over the entire period at about 60 TW-h.