The French continue to keep their electricity consumption low. According to data from the operator of the electric power transmission system (RTE), this consumption -restated for weather and calendar effects- fell by 8.1% last week compared to the average of the five years prior to the pandemic.
With the exception of a peak of almost 82 GW on Monday night, a day that also posed the threat of a first orange signal from Ecowatts in this winter period, and a small reminder the next day, electricity consumption did not exceeded 80 GW.
On the contrary, it continued to decrease day by day with a consumption peak of only 72 GW on Sunday, December 18 in the late morning. As a reminder, the weekend was particularly cool across France, with negative temperatures all day on Saturday. On the other hand, it should be noted that this drop in weekly consumption is somewhat less pronounced than in the previous week when it was close to 10%, at 9.7%, still compared to the average for the 2014-2019 period. On a monthly scale, the decrease in electricity consumption reached 9%.
The residential and tertiary sectors increasingly closer to the industry
RTE published yesterday its forecasts for the electrical system during this winter 2022-2023. The operator of the electricity transmission system has significantly revised its forecasts for the month of January, raising the risk of outages from high to medium with a maximum of three Ecowatt red signals activated over the next month.
We also learn in this update that all sectors are now affected by the reduction in electricity consumption. The industrial sector continues to show good performance with a monthly drop of 12% compared to the 2014-2019 period, but the residential and tertiary sectors, which lag far behind, also participate in this trend with a drop of around 7%.
Source: BFM TV
