The number of customers heating with gas in France “for the first time in a long time” decreased in 2022 (AFP/Archives/Jean-François MONIER)
The number of customers heating with gas in France has “for the first time in a long time” decreased this year, said Thursday GRDF, the main gas distributor in France, which explains the trend by a series of concerns, in particular on tariffs .
Since the 2000s, GRDF has observed a recurring decrease in the use of gas for cooking, particularly in buildings and large cities.
“This is the first year in a long time where we will see a decline in our number of heating customers”, indicated the general manager of GRDF, Laurence Poirier-Dietz, before the association of economic and financial journalists (Ajef) .
GRDF, which evokes a still provisional balance of 30,000 less heating customers, recorded “a small acceleration of people who give up and a brake on new” connections, in particular from customers heated with fuel oil who have become more wait-and-see and who also benefit from less conversion aid.
“What plumbers and heating engineers tell us is that they see a lot of customers who are a little lost, who no longer know what to do, and who have remained on hold,” adds Ms. Poirier-Dietz. “We had a very important dynamic last year of customers leaving fuel oil, it stopped”.
France still has 3 million oil-heated customers, including one million close to gas networks and likely to connect when the boiler runs out, or when they renovate their homes.
According to GRDF, “people are a bit worried about prices, about supply and a bit also about the image since they have heard that gas was financing the war in Ukraine, which is a false and caricatural view. There is also inflation, which means that people are not able to invest quickly. The boiler really has to go off for the decision to be made.
“It would be a major mistake to remove all gas heating from buildings because it would increase electricity needs, especially at peak times” of the day (morning and evening), insists Ms. Poirier-Dietz, who highlights in addition, the potential for biogas production.
“By 2030, in other words the day after tomorrow, 20% of our French gas consumption could be produced in France by green gas. That’s more than what came from Russia,” she said.
More than 500 methanizers injecting gas into the network are now connected. These are biomethane production sites using organic waste from agriculture, sludge from treatment plants or household bio-waste.
© 2022 AFP
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