When energy sobriety has not been implemented, we end up having cuts, explained Friday August 26 on franceinfo Thierry Bros, professor at Sciences Po Paris and specialist in questions relating to energy, while EDF has announced the extension of the shutdown of four nuclear reactors. Of the 56 reactors in France, 32 are shut down.
franceinfo: Should we be worried?
Thierry Bros: Yes, what the markets are telling us with record electricity and gas prices is that the operators don’t know how we’re going to get through the winter. This is the truth in the markets. Nuclear power is part of the problem, but in addition we have the problem of Russian gas. If you add the two, this means that the equivalent of 11% of our European primary energy is at risk. 11% is something we had never seen. During the Covid, when we all stopped, the demand for primary energy in Europe fell by 8%. We are at levels that we do not know how to control.
What effect can our dependence on nuclear power have in the months to come?
We are necessarily dependent on an energy, whatever it is. What was needed was flexibility, spare production capacity. Unfortunately, for ten years, we have lived a little on the myth of happy sobriety. We said to ourselves that in the end there was no need for more power stations, whether coal, gas or nuclear. We have closed many power stations and without this flexibility we are faced with a wall. We are not able today to imagine what the cuts could be this winter. Russian gas and French nuclear are problems.
Are cuts a real risk this winter?
Yes, I have been saying for months that we are in an energy crisis which is the most serious that we have ever experienced. When you no longer have means of production, unused residual capacities, the only solution is to destroy demand by cutting. What you have to understand is that energy sobriety, when it has not been put in place, in the end we have a destruction of demand. We’re going to tell people: “We haven’t made the investments so we don’t know how to deliver gas or electricity to you”.
Do prices have an impact?
Record prices are a way of telling the French that they should consume less. But consumers and manufacturers are very attached to their way of life. So far we haven’t seen a lot of demand destruction and that’s the problem. This is why at the end comes the cut that I call “the destruction of demand”. We say: “Since you didn’t want to make an effort, well, you don’t have any more electricity or gas”.
EDF has given recovery dates. Do you think they will be kept?
We see that the bad news is linked and that it is the postponement of a postponement. What we see is that the problems are piling up. We’ve been in this crisis for 18 months.