With the cold of winter approaching, energy savings are once again on the table. Millions of households will have to avoid taking a shower between noon and two. Or it will be cold. In anticipation of cooler days and therefore greater electricity consumption, public authorities issued a new decree last September allowing electricity managers to act on the automatic activation of hot water tanks.
This measure of reconfiguration of electric hot water tanks decided last year to prevent them from switching on during off-peak hours, namely around midday, is therefore renewed, and active from the end from next weekend until April, with a saving of 2.5 gigawatts, RTE said.
More than four million households affected
So that even in the event of an unusual cold spell, “peak electricity demand would a priori remain significantly lower than 100 gigawatts this winter,” RTE anticipates. The historic peak was reached in February 2012 at 102 GW, with a thermometer 8°C degrees below seasonal norms.
According to 60 Million consumers, this measure concerns the approximately 4.2 million customers who have a contract for six off-peak hours at night and two off-peak hours during the day, out of the 15 million who have a peak-off-peak hours subscription in France. The consumer magazine specifies that the measurement only concerns the automatic switching on of the water heater, other devices are spared by the measurement.