This winter, France could experience voltage drops or power outages. But what does this mean and what would be the impact for electric cars?
Right now, the energy sector is ultra-tense. We were talking about this recently with the soaring price of electricity on the wholesale market. A Defense Council even took place on Friday 2 September. The opportunity for the Minister of Energy Transition, Agnès Pannier-Ruchaner to come back to the solutions in the event of a shortage of gas and electricity. But the comments made by Elisabeth Borne, Prime Minister, Thursday, September 1, raise fears of the worst.
Indeed, according to her, power cuts, gas cuts and brownouts are possible on the French electricity network in the event that consumption exceeds energy production and imports. We explain how it works.
Rotating cuts or load shedding
In the extreme case where France does not have enough energy to distribute to all homes and businesses, then EDF (or more precisely RTE which manages the electricity network) can resort to what is called the rotating load shedding.
In practice, this is cut off power to certain neighborhoodsfor a period of two hours maximum. The word “turn” is very important here since, if necessary, after these two hours, another quarter can be cut in turn.
But beware, these cuts are framed by a decree which imposes time slots to be respected by EDF, RTE and Enedis. Cuts must take place between 8 a.m. and 1 p.m. and from 5:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.. It is therefore impossible to be deprived of power in the middle of the night. Let us also specify that some sensitive sites cannot be muted : “ hospitals, national defence, security, high-risk industries » as stated on the site Knowledge of Energies via AFP.
The voltage drop
But before getting there, RTE has other weapons in its arsenal. We can thus cite the drop in voltage. Thus, instead of delivering about 230 volts, RTE could lower the voltage to 220 volts. In practice, this means that resistive devices (such as ovens, radiators, hobs, etc.) will have slightly lower power.
In addition to the call for eco-citizen gestures to reduce consumption, RTE may also call for power cuts of a few hours or days, on industrial sites which volunteer, in exchange for remuneration.
Will power cuts be planned in advance?
It is when all these options have been exhausted that rotating blackout (load shedding) could be implemented.
A priori, this should not happen suddenly, but would be planned in advance, since AFP specifies that “theHigh-risk patients treated at home (in particular on artificial respirators) can report themselves to benefit from specific and personal information in the event of a power cut.“. We then imagine that this information should give the patient time to find an alternative solution.
What impact on electric cars?
In the case of electric cars, there is therefore not too much to worry about. Indeed, even with a drop in voltage, charging will still be possible, unless it is too high (under 207 volts) but this is theoretically impossible. RTE therefore does not have the right to go below this extreme value on average over 10 minutes. However, it is possible that the charging power is slightly reduced with a slightly longer charging time, depending on the method used by the charger.
And even in the event of cuts, we have seen that these will not last more than two hours and that the current will always be distributed at nightallowing electric cars to recharge.
What about public charging stations?
We can nevertheless ask ourselves the question of public charging stations. And especially those located on the highway, like Tesla Superchargers or the Ionity network. Are they considered a sensitive site? We imagine that behind the scenes, negotiations and negotiations would take place to prevent the power from being cut on these important sites for the mobility of the French.
But all this is only hypothetical
But will we have to come to these strong measures? Nothing is less sure. Indeed, out of 56 nuclear reactors installed in France, 32 reactors are currently shut down for various reasons (for maintenance or corrosion). But EDF has undertaken to restart them all “for this winter” indicates Agnès Pannier-Ruchanier to AFP.
It is still necessary that the French electrician can restart the reactors affected (or suspected for some) by the corrosion problems and that the checks of the other reactors do not reveal new corrosion problems in the months to come.
Maintenance of the tariff shield
The good news from the Defense Council is the commitment made by the French executive to amortize “part of the increase in the price of electricity” after the end of the tariff shield scheduled for the end of January 2023. We don’t yet know the details, but we imagine that recharging an electric car will always remain cheaper than refueling a petrol or diesel car.
Apart from electric cars, what do the American Tesla and the Chinese Nio have in common? Their ability to build virtual power plants, in order to become energy providers. We explain how.
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