To secure its supplies, France resorted to “sometimes massive” imports this winter. DAMIEN MEYER / AFP
France has succeeded in reducing its electricity consumption by around 9% and has imported electricity from abroad.
France, thanks to a reduced electricity consumption of around 9% and to current imports from abroad, avoided this winter twelve red Ecowatt signals, synonymous with possible cuts, indicated Thursday RTE, manager of the high network tension.
In the fall, RTE had warned of a risk of cuts due to the lower production of nuclear electricity, hampered by problems with reactors undergoing maintenance or repairs. Each prefecture had organized itself to deal with possible power cuts of two hours preceded by a red Ecowatt signal. “We did not have to draw a red Ecowatt signal, nor cuts to suffer thanks to two fundamental factors: the drop in consumption, sometimes suffered, sometimes chosen, and I mean congratulations“, greeted during a press conference Xavier Piechaczyk, chairman of the executive board of RTE.
An effort of sobriety
“If I had to sum up roughly, the drop in gross electricity consumption during the winter of 2022-23 can be explained for a quarter by the weather and for three-quarters by energy savings.“, detailed its director of foresight Thomas Veyrenc. The drop in consumption, excluding the weather effect, was “about 9%“, according to RTE, which compares with the period 2014-19 before the Covid crisis.
The sobriety effort (the Ministry of Energy Transition is working on an act 2 of its sobriety plan) has been observed “in all sectors” with a “greater downward effect in heavy industry, in particular steel, metallurgy or chemicals“, according to Thomas Veyrenc. For households, data analysis shows that “the main lever for reducing consumption is heating“. For next winter, RTE estimates that it is “probably in the tertiary sector“, shops, offices, etc., that are “the most important levers of economy» by improving the management of buildings and the control of lighting and heating.
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“Sometimes massive” imports
To secure its supplies, France resorted to imports “sometimes massivethis winter, up to 15 GW imported in particular from the United Kingdom during the cold peak of December 12. In the “worst case scenario“where the ability to import would have been limited and consumption would not have fallen, “we would have emitted eight orange and 12 red Ecowatt signals», explained Jean-Paul Roubin, RTE’s operations manager.
The Ecowatt application currently equips 3 million consumers and RTE plans to enrich it “with new features“, announced Xavier Piechaczyk: “even when Ecowatt will be green for questions of security of supply, the objective will be to guide the French so that we only consume carbon-free production“, in other words emitting little CO2, the gas responsible for global warming.