Like the Government, RTE defends the maxim that “there are no small economies”. A few hours before Elisabeth Borne, Bruno Le Maire and Agnès Pannier-Runacher held a conference on the energy situation on Wednesday, the operator of the electricity transmission network announced its outlook for the electricity system during the winter 2022-2023 .
In its report, RTE rules out any blackout risk that would correspond to a “total loss of control of the electrical system” but agrees with the Government on the blackout risk that “cannot be completely ruled out.” To eradicate this risk, the manager recommends reducing national consumption by between 1 and 5% and raising it by up to 15% “in the most extreme weather situations”.
A lever only in case of a red day at Ecowatt
To achieve this goal, RTE makes several small gestures quantifying its impact in gigawatts. One of the components refers in particular to the tertiary sector and public authorities. Among the ten levers of action on demand, the manager mentions the delay in recharging electric vehicles, which already represent one in ten sales of new cars in France.
This change would apply in the event of a red alert in the Ecowatt system launched by RTE and which already has 100,000 registrations. Ecowatt is based on a color code that classifies the voltage level of the electrical system into three categories, red corresponding to high voltage and green to normal consumption.
A terminal block from 8 to 13 and from 18 to 20?
But the manager of the electricity transmission network does not stop there and goes further to minimize the consumption of electricity in this specific station. For this reason, it proposes to cut off access to free access charging stations during these time slots that are conducive to heavy traffic.
The application of such a forceful measure, on the other hand, will be in the hands of charging station operators such as Ionity, Total, Fastned or even Izivia. Thanks to the three-day warning provided by the Ecowatt device in the event of a red episode, electric vehicle users will be encouraged to recharge their vehicles at night, which could save around 0.2 gigawatts each day.
Source: BFM TV
