• The coronavirus pandemic had caused a sharp drop in electricity consumption in 2020.

  • With the economic recovery, electricity needs jumped by 8% in 2021.

  • A rising consumption trend that should continue with the increase in the electrification of uses.

Here we go again as in 2019. The two years of the coronavirus pandemic have caused a sharp drop in economic activity in France, which has had a direct impact on electricity consumption, which has been at its lowest for a long time.

But businesses were quick to pick up the slack and the electricity meters started ticking again.

Electricity transmission network (RTE) noted a sharp increase in consumption in 2021, particularly in Hauts-de-France.

By necessity, 2020 has been a very good year in terms of energy savings.

Successive confinements put industries on hold and the particularly mild weather had boosted the production of renewable energies.

The fanfare recovery of the economy in 2021 caused electricity consumption in Hauts-de-France to jump by more than 5%, which returned to the level before the health crisis, in 2019, says RTE.

This is all the more true in the metallurgy and iron and steel sectors, which engulfed 5,314 and 3,396 GWh respectively last year.

Green electricity victim of the weather

In addition, while electricity production did not follow the same curve, it nevertheless returned to its pre-Covid level, but fell by 8% compared to 2020. According to RTE, overall production had indeed been driven upwards by wind and photovoltaic farms.

A production of green electricity which therefore suffered from the weather in 2021 even though wind farms experienced growth of +7%.

The development of solar is not to be outdone, since it too has evolved strongly upwards.

RTE specifies that it has gone from “186 to 343 MW installed (+80%).

Solar production increased by 50% compared to 2020 (0.3 TWh)”.

The electricity carrier believes that this upward trend should continue, in particular due to "electricity projects for uses", such as electric mobility or the decarbonization of industry, which have multiplied in 2021. Among the future major power consumers in the region, the battery manufacturing gigafactories that are springing up like mushrooms in Hauts-de-France.

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  • Coronavirus

  • electricity

  • energy

  • Hauts-de-France

  • Planet

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