A notable drop in the space of two months. Gas consumption in France is experiencing a “double-digit drop”around 14%, since August, compared to “at the average of the last five years”announced Wednesday, October 19 the Minister for Energy Transition, Agnès Pannier-Runacher, on Franceinfo.
However, the figure excludes consumption thermal power stations that run on gaslargely mobilized to compensate for the difficulties of the French nuclear fleet, whose electricity production is at its lowest.
According to the ministry, contacted by Agence France-Presse“we can assume that this relates both to prices [en hausse du gaz] that encourage people to reduce consumption and also sobriety efforts”even if it is difficult to measure the weight of each of these factors.
Electricity consumption also down
Like gas, electricity consumption has also been decreasing since the end of the summeras revealed on Tuesday by RTE, the manager of the electricity transmission network in France.
“The decrease in electricity consumption corrected for weather hazards can now be estimated at around 5% compared to its pre-health crisis level”RTE said on Tuesday in its updated analysis of the electricity scenario for the winter.
“Compared to the trend of the first half, the decrease is around 3 to 4% in the month of September 2022”i.e. just before the unveiling of the pgovernment sobriety lan, October 6. For Thomas Veyrenc, Executive Director responsible for strategy, forecasting and evaluation at RTE, it is “too early to analyze the effects of the sobriety plan”.
The fall in electricity consumption is even more marked in large industrial enterprises, where it has been reduced by 8 to 9% compared to pre-crisis levels, due to the “economic slowdown observed in Europe and specifically [de] the spectacular rise in energy prices, which have led some factories to stop or moderate their activity”
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