Status: 09.12.2022 12:08 p.m
As France prepares for possible controlled power shutdowns, Paris suffered a power outage yesterday. Tens of thousands of households in the capital were affected.
There was a widespread power failure in Paris last night. A total of 125,000 households were without electricity for around 45 minutes. Among other things, the third, fourth and fifth arrondissement of the French capital were affected, as announced by the network operator RTE. In the social networks, residents shared pictures of entire streets that were in the dark.
The reason for the failure was a breakdown in a transformer, said the energy supplier Enedis. As France gears up for potential power cuts during a harsh winter, Central Paris Mayor Ariel Weil joked he didn’t expect the power to go out so quickly.
practice of the authorities
The power failure occurred on the eve of an exercise by the French authorities to simulate the temporary and regional shutdown of the power supply in a region. Around 20 of the 56 French nuclear power plants are still not connected to the grid. With a harsh winter, there is concern that power generation may not be able to meet demand at certain times.
The government has therefore started preparations for local power cuts at peak loads. This is to prevent an uncontrolled blackout. Today, processes for a shutdown are to be rehearsed without a shutdown actually taking place.
Nuclear power plants are to be ramped up again
The French energy supplier EDF announced, however, that three of its nuclear power plants would be gradually started up again after repair work. The Cattenom 4 power plant, with an output of 1300 megawatts, should be fully operational again on Sunday at the earliest. The two reactors Bugey 3 and Cruas 2 are therefore again available for electricity production.
It is currently planned that the French nuclear power plants will again reach a total capacity of 40 gigawatts in the coming month. Numerous technical problems had recently led to the nuclear power plants in the country producing less electricity than they had in 30 years.