Admittedly, zero risk does not exist, but France should get through the winter without having to resort to power cuts. The French electricity transmission manager RTE confirmed its reassuring vision on Wednesday, even if the weather and the strike against the pension reform are raising uncertainties.
This improvement is made possible by a real sobriety effort by households and businesses, and the good recovery of nuclear power plants. But there are still “some risks around the second half of February”: “we must remain vigilant”, however warned the chairman of the executive board of RTE Xavier Piechaczyk on France Info. The risks will arise “if we go through a long and significant cold period” because EDF must soon disconnect several nuclear reactors for maintenance.
The strike which is announced at EDF from Thursday, as in other companies, will be all the more scrutinized as it can be synonymous with “reductions in charges”, in other words, a reduction in nuclear production, of which France is 70% dependent for its electricity. At this stage, it is difficult to assess the consequences, according to RTE because it will depend on the extent of the mobilization and the keeping of the reactor restart schedules by EDF. RTE, however, indicated that it had “regulatory and legal provisions” allowing it “to ask all the means of production on strike to stop production cuts”.
Restarting nuclear reactors
For the time being, the risk of activation of the EcoWatt red signal for the next four weeks remains at a “medium level”, which is “lower than in the September forecast, but it is not a zero risk, no more”, underlined Thomas Veyrenc, Executive Director of the strategy, forecasting and evaluation division of RTE. To end the winter, sobriety will have to continue, as will the continuation of nuclear reactor restarts, even in the event of a strike.
At its lowest during the summer of 2022 due to maintenance and repair operations, the availability of nuclear reactors has risen in recent weeks. On Wednesday, 43 out of 56 reactors were connected to the network, or 71.85% of the installed power, which had not been seen for a long time, according to EDF data analyzed by AFP.
This will improve with the recoupling of two reactors by the end of January, before two others in February. But it will be necessary to count on 9 reactors less as part of the maintenance planned during the year 2023. RTE forecasts available power between 40 and 45 GW (out of an installed capacity of 61.4 GW) at the end of February, which would remain always low.