The French electricity grid is powered up on January 8, 2021. -

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  • The manager of the French electricity network asked consumers to limit their consumption this Friday morning, due to the extreme cold which should already increase the country's electricity expenditure.

  • The manager fears an electrical consumption close to the maximum possible, and wishes to avoid any risk of outage.

  • How is such a scenario possible in France?

This Thursday, the electricity network manager (RTE) invited the French to reduce their electricity consumption this Friday morning from 7 am to 1 pm.

Due to the extreme cold and the expected drop in temperatures (between -4 and -4.5 ° C below the seasonal norms), electricity consumption risked reaching a high level, leaving only margins. reduced maneuvering in case of tight flow.

According to RTE, the French electricity consumption risked reaching a high level, at some 88,000 megawatts.

The production "will be sufficient, at 88,200 MW, to cover all the needs", but to "avoid any risk of cut", the French are invited to reduce their consumption via "eco-friendly actions".

But how did we come to this? 

20 Minutes

takes stock.

What's going on this Friday?

The MonEcoWatt system is triggered at national level.

This plan asks French users to pay attention to their electricity consumption.

This is one of the levers for managing electricity consumption, informs RTE, contacted by

20 Minutes

.

Among the other levers considered, there is in particular the shutdown of electricity distribution at large industrial sites with high consumption, obviously warned upstream and which have signed contracts providing for this type of eventuality or even the drop in the voltage of the network 5% distribution.

Consumers then receive less electricity, and all the devices work, but at a lower intensity (by 5% less, which according to RTE, is imperceptible on most devices).

According to Anne Blavette, CNRS researcher at the SATIE laboratory (Systems and applications of information and energy technologies)

from the Ecole Normale Supérieure de Rennes, the MonEcoWatt device is frequently used in Brittany and Paca, these two regions “having a lower level of interconnection than the others with the rest of the network.

"

For the researcher, there are two major solutions to this kind of overloaded network.

First, to strengthen the electricity park with more power plants, “but in this case, these plants would only be used a tiny part of the time, which would not be economically profitable unless the cost of energy was increased and therefore the consumer bill ”, not to mention the environmental impact: building power plants needed only a few days does not seem the best idea for the planet.

Second solution therefore, this kind of voluntary electricity drop, on condition of obtaining the support of consumers.

It was too early this Friday when we contacted RTE to determine if the eco-gestures had been followed.

Admittedly, national electricity consumption during the peak this Friday morning was less than expected: 87,000 megawatts only against 88,000 estimated, but it is impossible to know the share of eco-gestures.

This drop in consumption could also be due to more favorable light (and therefore fewer bulbs used) as well as lower economic activity than expected.

According to Anne Blavette, in Brittany and Paca, MonEcoWatt initiatives are most of the time very successful.

Is the French electricity fleet called into question?

How can one of the world's leading powers encounter electricity grid problems during episodes of extreme cold?

Three elements of answers.

First, as Anne Blavette has already explained, building really necessary power stations for a few exceptional days a year would necessarily have harmful consequences, both ecologically and economically.

Second, 2020 was, as everyone knows, an atypical year, and the same is true for the French electricity fleet, weakened by the coronavirus.

Each year, power plants, mainly nuclear, are shut down one by one for maintenance, according to a precise schedule.

This maintenance schedule focuses as much as possible on summer, the period when electricity consumption is the lowest (much greater daylight, no heating, holidays and therefore industrial sites that are closed or less consuming, etc.) Gold, RTE indicates that due to the first containment, the entire schedule had to be postponed because maintenance was impossible from March to May, which means that this winter in particular, more plants than expected are shut down for maintenance, reducing de facto the electrical capacities of the French fleet.

Third, beyond this year 2020, France is also in a period of energy transition.

Many power plants are closing or are in the process of closing, such as fuel oil or coal, while the more eco-responsible ones supposed to replace them are behind schedule.

"Until 2024, there will be more closures than openings, de facto reducing French electricity capacity", informs RTE.

Can this kind of day happen again?

This winter, very clearly yes, since the maintenance issues due to 2020 will remain relevant.

For the next few years, once the bulk of maintenance and shutdowns have returned in the summer, things should improve, even if RTE cannot completely rule out the hypothesis that this kind of problem occurs again, as long as the situation of the energy transition is not settled.

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