Baptiste Morin 2:21 p.m., December 26, 2022
The call for energy sobriety seems to work on the side of households and businesses, but also on the side of local authorities which reduced their consumption of public lighting by 20% during the first two weeks of December.
Savings that could be even greater in the coming weeks.
This is the formula of the year: energy sobriety.
We know that the call for sobriety was well respected by households in particular, whether in terms of their electricity or gas consumption.
Companies, too, have respected this call from Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne in the fall.
A sign: the electricity consumption of EDF customers fell by 10% in November compared to 2021. Local authorities have also played the game of sobriety at the end of the year.
A drop "never seen"
Over the first two weeks of December, the electricity network manager recorded a 20% drop in the consumption of public lighting.
Nicolas Desmalades is the manager of the "My Eco Public Lighting" program at Enedis.
"It's 10% of the power of a nuclear reactor that was saved during these 15 days. Compared to the previous year, we had never seen such a sudden and significant drop."
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The extinguishing of lights in the middle of the night has been observed in mountain villages as well as in metropolitan areas.
It must be said that the motivations are also economic.
Public lighting represents 40% of electricity consumption expenditure in a municipality and Nicolas Desmalades notes that there is still room for improvement.
"30% of public lighting bulbs in France are turned off at night. So there is still considerable potential for reducing electricity consumption for public lighting in France."
Soaring energy prices, sometimes multiplied by three or four, should help convince even more town halls.