Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne has promised: the gas supply to households will be guaranteed this winter in the event of a shortage. But that will not be entirely the case for electricity: in the event of a cold wave, there could be “rotating load shedding”, she said on Wednesday August 31, while France is deprived of a part of its nuclear reactors, in particular for corrosion problems. This scenario, envisaged by the public operator of the RTE network, is one of the different stages in the event of tensions between supply and demand. France Bleu explains to you.
Last resort solution
Before arriving at these load shedding, the network manager benefits from other solutions to avoid any blackout. First, the call for citizen eco-gestures to reduce consumption. Companies can also be impacted, with interruptions in supply to industrial sites. Next, the electrical voltage can be lowered by 5% on the entire networkwithout causing any real perceptible change for households.
Once all these solutions have been put in place, and if they are not enough, load shedding can intervene as a last resort. It is, specifies the RTE, “momentary, localized and rotating cuts”. Clearly, these are cuts that last no more than two hoursbetween 8 a.m. and 1 p.m. or 5:30 p.m. and 8:30 p.m., and relate to households in turn. Only so-called “sensitive” users are not concerned, such as hospitals, national defense, high-risk industries, or even high-risk patients treated at home.
When this measure is implemented, the public network manager RTE indicates this the day before, in particular via notifications on its mobile app.