by Benjamin Mallett
PARIS (Reuters) – France’s electricity supply in January poses “more risk” than in previous analyzes due to lower-than-expected nuclear generation, according to an update to RTE’s forecasts. released on Friday.
The manager of French high-voltage lines specified in this document that the availability of EDF’s nuclear fleet should be lower than its initial forecasts in December and reach around 40 gigawatts (GW) at the start of January.
“The delays already accumulated on certain reactors make it improbable, even if still possible, to reach an availability of 45 GW during this period”, according to RTE.
However, the situation appears to be “little risky for the end of November, and moderately risky for the beginning of December, due to the weather forecasts and more generally the level of consumption”.
The company responsible for the electricity transmission network also indicated that its analysis remained unchanged for the whole of the winter insofar as the structural drop in electricity consumption – which has reached 5 to 7% since the end of summer compared to its level of 2019 – and that of nuclear production “compensate on the whole”.
“There is less risk in December, there is more in January, there is less at the end of February and in March. But quantitatively, over the winter, it is the same risk,” he told reporters. Thomas Veyrenc, Executive Director of the Strategy, Forecasting and Evaluation Division of RTE.
“If EDF puts 15 reactors back into service by mid-December, we will end up above our central vision. If ever it is not 15 but a little less, which seems likely to me, we will be consistent with our vision statistics,” he added.
Friday morning, the availability of the French nuclear fleet was around 53%, or 32.5 GW out of a total of 61.4 GW of installed capacity.
“HIGH” RISK OF ALERTS IN JANUARY
EDF had to lower its forecast for nuclear production in France for 2022 at the beginning of November, to a level of 275 to 285 terawatt-hours (TWh), due to the impact of strikes on the maintenance of its power plants and the extension of the duration of shutdown of four reactors for repairs related to the corrosion problem detected on certain circuits.
The Minister of Economy and Finance, Bruno Le Maire, had declared in October that the priority for EDF was to restart its shutdown reactors as quickly as possible in order to find 50 GW of nuclear production capacity available at the start of January 2023. .
Referring to the month of January, a source in the office of the Minister for Energy Transition, Agnès Pannier-Runacher, said on Friday that it was “too early at this stage to confirm that organized power cuts will be necessary”, in particular taking into account meteorological uncertainties.
A solidarity agreement to export electricity from Germany to France “at maximum capacity” should be signed between the two countries next week, the same source also indicated, without detailing the content of the agreement. OK.
Jean-Paul Roubin, executive director in charge of RTE’s “Customers and electricity system operation” scope, recalled that if voluntary and targeted power cuts – known as “load shedding” – were to be decided, individuals could be affected. insofar as they are not classified as priority consumers.
CALL FOR GAS, COAL AND OIL-FIRED POWER PLANTS
“By departments, on average, the non-shedding power is around 38%. So that means that 62% of consumption is likely to be able to be shed, so (…) there will obviously be a large number individuals, households, but also artisans and small SMEs-SMIs who will be cut at that time,” he said.
“All the means of production available – gas, coal, fuel oil – will be started before we cut off; it is unthinkable to cut off consumers by having means of production stopped (which are) available”, however reminded Jean -Paul Roubin.
RTE specified that the risk of recourse to the “Ecowatt” alert system – and in particular of a “red alert signal” warning of inevitable cuts if consumption does not drop – appeared “high in January but will depend( it) largely climatic conditions and the possible occurrence of even a moderate cold snap”.
Still according to RTE, electricity prices on the futures markets for early 2023 continue to include “a disproportionate risk premium compared to the fundamentals of the supply-demand balance, despite a decrease in futures prices mainly reflecting a drop in tension on the gas markets”.
(Edited by Kate Entringer and Jean-Stéphane Brosse)