Threat of power cuts this winter ‘seems to be receding’, government says

The threat of power cuts this winter “seems to move away”, said Wednesday, January 4, the government spokesman, Olivier Véran, during the report of the Council of Ministers. The executive nevertheless calls on the “businesses and citizens” to “maintain efforts on eco-gestures”.

“The risk of a cut this winter seems to be on the decline, in particular due to a gradual resumption of operation of our nuclear power plants, but also due to the weather conditions, everyone will have been able to see this, [et] because of the effort made by the State, companies and all French people in terms of energy sobriety. This is therefore rather reassuring news, but which should not take us away from our objective, which is that of energy sobriety. »

“We have one objective: to reduce our consumption, which does not find its only opportunity in the temporary contraction of supply or the rise in prices”continued Mr. Véran. “Our ambition is global, it is long term, it is not cyclical, since it joins the objective of preserving our planet and humanity. »

The president calls on the government “to be bold”

Last week, the president of the Energy Regulation Commission (CRE), Emmanuelle Wargon, had already estimated that the threat of power cuts receded. The former housing minister explained this reprieve by calling for sobriety “really heard by the French”with a 9% drop in total consumption over the last four months in France.

The network operator RTE had also lowered, on December 20, the risk of tensions for the electricity network in January by” raised “ to ” average “taking into account the efforts observed and the restarting of several nuclear reactors – 42 nuclear reactors out of 56 are currently in service.

Dashboard : Are you at risk of cuts? How was the electricity produced? Are we consuming less than before? The dashboard of the French network in real time

During the back-to-school Council of Ministers, President Emmanuel Macron also invited the ministers “to be bold and to remain attentive to the concerns of all French people (…)at a time when we are reforming, when we are transforming, in order to be able to respond to day-to-day emergencies and future emergencies for all French people”said Mr. Véran.

The World with AFP