The decrease is noted over the period of “August 1 to today” compared to “the average of the last five years,” said the ministry contacted by AFP. The figure excludes the consumption of gas-fired power plants, which are largely used to compensate for the difficulties of the French nuclear fleet, whose electricity production is at its lowest. “We can assume that this is due to both prices that encourage reduced consumption and efforts to reduce consumption,” although it is difficult to measure the weight of each of these factors, said the same source.
Like gas, electricity consumption has also been decreasing since the end of the summer, as revealed on Tuesday by RTE, the French electricity transmission system operator.
“The decrease in electricity consumption corrected for weather hazards can now be estimated at around 5% compared to its pre-crisis level (of Covid),” said RTE Tuesday in its updated analysis of the electricity scenario for the winter. “Compared to the trend in the first half of the year, the decrease is in the order of 3 to 4% over the month of September 2022,” well before the implementation of the sobriety plan announced on October 6 by the government.
For Thomas Veyrenc, Executive Director in charge of strategy, foresight and evaluation at RTE, it is “too early to analyze the effects of the sobriety plan”. The drop is even more marked in large industrial companies, where electricity consumption has fallen by 8 to 9% compared to pre-crisis levels, according to RTE, due to the “economic slowdown observed in Europe and specifically (the) spectacular rise in energy prices, which has led some factories to stop or moderate their activity”.
