France fears the shortage of electricity this winter, which could push the authorities to decide on targeted cuts. Where are electricity production and consumption in the country? Follow the situation in real time…
“Do not panic !” Emmanuel Macron tried to reassure, at the beginning of December, on the risks of electricity shortage which threaten France in January and February 2023. While a load shedding plan was announced by the government in the event of strong tensions in the days the coldest of the year, the President of the Republic, who spoke in an interview with TF1 and LCI on the sidelines of his visit to the United States, defended the “work done by the government, which is legitimate, to prepare for an extreme case: the need to cut off the electricity for a few hours during the day if it were to run out”.
Electricity consumption and production in the country can she really stall to the point of causing cuts ? Electricity transmission network (RTE), the manager of electricity transmission across the country, provides via the platform Eco2Mix valuable data, updated in real time or almost, on the country’s electricity situation.
Does France produce enough electricity for its consumption today?
PRECISION : the data of the day and the day before are accumulations carried out by our care since the beginning of the day from the “real time” data made available on Data.gouv by theOpen Data Energy Networks (ODRÉ), a platform bringing together data from GRTgaz, RTE, Teréga and several other key organizations in the energy sector in France. The averages at the same date for the last 5 years are calculated from “consolidated” data from 2017 to 2021.
Production and consumption today per quarter hour
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What is the level of electricity consumption in France?
PRECISION : on this graph as on the following two, the data for the day (red curve and blue curve) are “real time” data drawn up every quarter of an hour by the ODRÉ and available on Data.gouv. The averages for the last 5 years have been calculated by us from “consolidated” data also available on Data.gouv.
What is the level of electricity production in France?
Does France import or export electricity?
What is the share of each energy in the production of electricity?
The last curves above show it: if France fears the shortage of electricity this winter, it is primarily because of the production and not of the consumption of energy in the country. On the consumption side, the French indeed seem to be more economical in 2022 than in recent years, as confirmed in particular by Xavier Piechaczyk, chairman of the management board of RTE in Le Figaro on November 14, thanks to often mild temperatures and reduced economic activity. . On the other hand, production has been disrupted since last summer by major maintenance operations and corrosion problems in French nuclear power plants. EDF thus predicts that 10 reactors out of the 56 in its nuclear fleet will still be disconnected in January 2023. In November, the energy supplier lowered its annual production forecasts from 280-300 TWh of nuclear electricity planned to 275-285 terawatt hours.