The risk of targeted power outages in January or February cannot be “excluded,” but the highest-risk winter will “probably” be 2023-2024, the chairman of the California Power Regulation Commission estimated Thursday night. Emmanuelle Wargon.
“We have a delicate winter there now and we probably have a delicate or difficult winter in 2023-2024 as well. This is also where what we will do on gas imports, electricity imports, the rest of the community emergency measures, the start From the reflection on the organization of the market, this will play the winter of 23-24”, he declared in BFM Business. “We have a good chance that things will not go so bad for the winter of 2022-23 at the end. For 2023-2024, it’s still really very uncertain,” she added, acknowledging that this second winter under stress “will likely” be the most risky.
Regarding this winter, he indicated again that we could not “exclude selective cuts. It is not 100% certain. It will depend on our sobriety or not, on the weather, on our ability to react when the RTE network manager announces that it is Very tense”. The electricity distribution network “Enedis is preparing with the prefects just in case. We are always there just in case. It is not written that this is going to happen,” he stressed
High risk”
The fear of cuts has been revived after the latest forecast from RTE, the operator of the electricity transport system, which warned last Friday of a “high” risk of tensions in the electricity system in January, due to the slower restart than expected. expected from EDF’s nuclear reactors – almost half of which are still closed.
Asked about electricity prices, Emmanuelle Wargon indicated that the evolution of things will depend on a “critical moment” which is “the arrival of the reactors that are currently undergoing maintenance or repair under restriction for the production network in December and January “.
“If they come in line with EDF’s updated forecasts, that means we’ll be able to cope with January if it’s not too cold and that means prices for Q1 and Q2 could stabilize or even fall,” he said.
Source: BFM TV
