More than 100,000 households had to dine by candlelight on Monday in Guadeloupe due to a power cut that affected several municipalities between 6 p.m. and 9 p.m. “A technical incident occurred at the electricity producer EDF PEI”, the subsidiary of EDF in Guadeloupe which owns the thermal power plant with diesel engines. “The causes of the incident are still being investigated,” Electricité de France said on Tuesday.
After the outage on Monday, EDF indicated that it was cutting power to maintain the balance between demand for electricity, which was very strong at peak times at the time of the outage, and the production capacities of the network, also calling on its customers to significantly reduce their electricity consumption. Power was restored across the island shortly after 9 p.m.
The thermal power station at the origin of the breakdown is the main installation of electricity production in Guadeloupe and represents, according to the Regional Energy and Climate Observatory (Orec), 60% of local electricity production, the rest of the energy produced from a coal-fired power plant and renewable energies: wind, solar, biogas, geothermal energy, etc.
“In 2020, 76.68% of electricity production comes from primary fossil energies (oil and coal) and 23.32% from renewable energies”, indicates Orec in a 2021 report. Electricity production increases from year to year, but in ever lower proportions than that produced from fossil fuels. The NGO Guadeloupe + also raises the question of energy independence.
However, projects exist, such as “the installation of a solar power plant in Marie-Galante, or the increase in the power of the geothermal power plant in Bouillante”, recalls Jérôme Roch, director of the Agency for the environment and energy management in Guadeloupe. According to the Orec report, “in 2020, the rate of energy dependence” of Guadeloupe “is equal to 92.81% vis-à-vis imported energy resources, and 92.66% vis-à-vis fossil energy resources. »