What a “recovery” for EDF, which still had 32 reactors shut down out of 56 (57% of the fleet unavailable) on 25 August! This Friday, the electrician has just announced that it had put three more nuclear reactors back into service tonight, which means that there are only 16 reactors left shut down for maintenance or repairs, according to data fromEDF.
In detail, the resumption of electricity production concerns the Bugey 3 (near Grenoble), Dampierre 3 (in Loiret) and Cattenom 4 (in Lorraine) reactors.
Concretely, with 40 reactors connected ( once morest only 24 in service at the end of August) to supply the French electricity network, we are approaching three quarters of the fleet in operation (71.5% availability) which has a total of 56 reactors. On the power delivered side, EDF announces that 39 GW are now available, that is to say 63% of the maximum installed power of the French nuclear fleet, which is 61 GW.
“40 reactors are connected to the network this morning”, indicated the direction of EDF which counts like customers approximately 70% of the French households and 55% to 60% of the companies.
This is good news, as the next few days will see the accentuation of the drop in temperatures which has started to spread throughout France, and as the fear of tensions on the electricity network grows, with possible power outages. key at the height of winter.
France, a net importer of electricity, unheard of in 42 years
The progression is important but it follows a logic: the French energy company had voluntarily put many reactors in maintenance during the summer period so that they are available this winter. And the result is in line with the objective set by EDF to reach 40 reactors in service by mid-December. So the electrician keeps his schedule a little ahead of time.
Still, France is this year, for the first time in 42 years, a net importer of electricity because the level of nuclear electricity production is at its lowest, due to scheduled but sometimes prolonged maintenance, or problems corrosion that required lengthy repairs.
This Friday, December 9, the Minister of the Economy Bruno Le Maire went with the new CEO of EDF, Luc Rémont, to the Penly power plant in Normandy, the reactors of which are shut down and must restart in early 2023.
Even if they are not inevitable, scheduled rolling blackouts of a maximum of two hours might occur during the winter if calls to reduce electricity consumption are not sufficiently respected.
For Monday, December 12, EcoWatt remains green for the time being
To warn consumers in advance of cuts, the government has set up ÉcoWatt, with a three-level signal system: green if all is well, orange when the system is tense and red when the alert level is at its maximum. and that we must redouble our efforts to save energy, for example not plugging in our oven, turning off our heating, etc.
There was talk this morning that EcoWatt would issue an orange signal for Monday December 12, but at 2 p.m. on Friday December 9, the signal was still green on the site (image below). Note that EcoWatt’s mobile app reached 2 million downloads last night.
French consumption fell by 10%
For the time being, the manager of the high and very high voltage line network RTE has observed a drop in electricity consumption despite the cold: – 8.3% over one week compared to the average for the 2014-2019 period. EDF, for its part, estimates the drop at -10% in November, compared to November 2021.
RTE and the electricity distributor Enedis are also organizing a national exercise this Friday, involving the prefectures, to test their procedures and modes of communication in the event of load shedding, with simulations of several computer scenarios. This is in no way a cut-off test on the population.
(with AFP)
