As the government prepares for possible power outages in January, some users are asking for special attention. This is particularly the case for people who depend on devices for living, patients at high risk of life (PHRV). Patients with a ventilator with autonomy less than or equal to four hours a day are, for example, PHRVs.
The government sent a circular to the prefects on Thursday, in order to prepare the departments for possible scheduled power outages. Vulnerable people are mentioned in the document.
The regional health agencies (ARS) are thus in charge of identifying patients at high vital risk in their territory and transmitting this list to the electricity distribution managers, “who will have taken them into account,” reads the circular. “Hotspots” such as hospitals will not be affected by cuts.
In the event of a scheduled power outage, administrators must notify PHRVs three days in advance of the load outage. They will need to “make sure you are informed and aware of the red EcoWatt sign”, which indicates that power outages are inevitable if electricity consumption does not decrease during the busiest time slots.
Possible movements of these people
The manager of France’s public electricity network, Enedis, “will keep the ARS informed of any particular situation that requires adequate support.” The government also asks the prefects to ensure, at the indication of their ARS, “the organization of the possible movements of these people”.
For people who are not at “high vital risk” but who are still vulnerable, the government asks the prefects to “remind municipalities of the need to register vulnerable people in their registers of fragile people.”
These registries identify in particular people over the age of 65 residing in the household or people with disabilities and are used to assist them in the event of a risky situation for them, such as a heat wave.
Case by case management
“It will be yours, in conjunction with the mayors, that these people are aware of the red EcoWatt signal in D-3 and, in the case of medical equipment, that it has an autonomous power source sufficient for a major power outage two hours”, details the circular.
Otherwise, the emergency services will have to decide if it is necessary to evacuate the affected person to a health center or to another place, as a preventive measure.
All “potentially fragile” people will be “managed individually to avoid any complicated situation,” government spokesman Olivier Véran said Thursday on BFMTV-RMC, without saying more about how they will be cared for.
Cuts that remain hypothetical
The government’s plan, which concerns the metropolitan territory except Corsica, linked to Italy and which has its own electricity production, serves to prepare the country, although the rotating load shedding, of a maximum of two hours, remains at this stage a hypothesis. They could take place in January if power becomes a problem. These difficulties are partly due to the low level of nuclear electricity production in France this year.
There will not be an entire department surveyed, but only parts of the territory. In all cases, the cuts would occur at the times of greatest consumption, between 8:00 and 1:00 in the morning, and between 6:00 and 8:00 in the afternoon.
For now, however, the government wants to be reassuring. This Thursday on BFMTV-RMC, Olivier Véran insisted that he was not announcing to the French “that there will be cuts” and that it was mainly a matter of “anticipation”. Regarding a risk of blackout, which would later affect all of France, the government spokesman assured that “it will not happen.”
Source: BFM TV
