Government representatives from the region have been asked to make sure that patients receiving life-saving medical attention are informed three days in advance of any power outages so they can be moved to alternative facilities.
As the government informed local authorities on how to handle any potential outages, the president of French power grid operator RTE indicated on Thursday that France may see “several days”this winter, when a lack of electricity could cause blackouts.
Xavier Piechaczyk said on France Info radio that while there are hazards in the circumstances, power outages are not necessarily a given.
Piechaczyk adhered to the final supply forecast issued by the agency, which had warned of potential shortages in January.
As of December 1, we had 35 gigawatts of nuclear power available; our goal is to increase that to between 40 and 41 on January 1 and to roughly 43 by the end of the month, compared to a total capacity of 61.
The projection, according to Piechaczyk, was based on the EDF nuclear maintenance timetable, and some extra delays were already foreseen.
EDF’s network of nuclear reactors has experienced an unprecedented number of outages, bringing nuclear output to a 30-year low as Europe rushes to replace Russian gas supplies that Moscow shut off in response to sanctions the European Union imposed over its invasion of Ukraine.
According to RTE’s scenario, there is a chance that “some days this winter” may see Ecowatt, the nation’s electricity monitoring app, flash a red warning. It would be necessary to load customers partially off the power grid as a result.
Piechaczyk stated that the app has not yet been used by enough individuals.”Our app has been downloaded by around 300,000 people, and we have 470,000,000,000 SMS alert subscribers. We need to conduct more advertising because that is not enough, he remarked.
According to analysts cited by Reuters, the first power outages might start as early as Monday due to the chilly weather.
If we remain at 35 GW, Monday of the following week might become quite tight, warned Refinitiv analyst Nathalie Gerl. We forecast consumption at typically seasonal average levels, but 35 GW of nuclear power would not be enough to meet a fictitious peak demand of 73 GW.
We don’t anticipate a red alert until the end of 2022, said Frederic Lefort, head of business and administrative clients at Engie, one of the major power providers, during a Thursday event.
PARTIAL LOAD SHEDDING
According to Reuters, the French government has delivered legally binding guidelines outlining the proper way to prioritize electricity allocation to regional government authorities. Additionally, it exhorts them to consult with local businesses and authorities to ensure that all emergency power generators are operational.
The government stated in the instructions that any planned outages “should not affect more than 4 million people at the same time,” and that any local load-shedding procedures should not run longer than two hours and will be announced by RTE at 5 p.m. local time the day before.
According to the rules, critical locations like hospitals can be exempted, but schools should be closed on days when there aren’t enough supplies available.
Additionally, regional government representatives were requested to make sure that patients seeking life-saving medical attention had three days’ warning of potential power outages so they could be moved to alternative places.
