“Low, turn off, change.” Will the slogan chosen by the government to encourage the French to be more energy efficient bear fruit? If 88% of French people perceive sobriety as a necessity according to an Opinionway poll presented this Thursday for Le Printemps de l’économie, the goodwill has yet to translate into action. At least when it comes to power consumption.
On FranceInfo this Wednesday, Xavier Piechaczyk, president of RTE, the power grid administrator, stated that he had not yet noticed a reduction in electricity consumption compared to the same period in 2019.
“We are in the process of redoing our calculations and correcting all this for seasonal variations to have data at the end of the month,” he continues.
If the Government has not set a quantified objective for this winter, Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne recalled last week that the objective was to achieve energy savings of 10% by 2024 and even 40% by 2050 in sight with the neutrality of carbon.
The slight decrease observed by RTE in recent weeks is perhaps due to a particularly mild and dry autumn and lower use of heating compared to the reference year 2019. As a reminder, heating represents two thirds of household energy consumption, according to Adme.
Industrial production will fall by 10%
If the Government’s statement does not seem for the moment to have had the effect of an electric shock on our lifestyles, the head of RTE remains optimistic for the coming months.
Rising energy prices could be the real driver of sobriety. This Friday, Bruno Le Maire during a press conference estimated that industrial production should fall by 10% in the fourth quarter with the rise in gas and electricity prices.
“The important thing is this winter”
As for individuals, the head of RTE hopes that Ecowatt’s warnings and the advice given bear fruit. To date, 250,000 French have registered on the “electric weather forecast” site created by RTE to receive watch alerts. Within the next week, a smartphone app will be available for iPhone and Android phones.
The challenge, reminds RTE, is not so much that the French today drastically reduce their electricity consumption, but rather that they follow the recommendations when the cold returns and when consumption peaks are reached.
On Ecowatt red alert days (there can be around twenty in winter if it is very cold), people will be called to change the heating (peaks are from 8am to 1pm in the morning and 7pm in the evening ), reduce the lighting and change the cooking times (the peaks being at 7:00 p.m. during normal hours).
Source: BFM TV
