“
There will be no general blackout by the end of winter.
We can say so because there are a number of provisions that prevent this
”.
While today no less than 16 nuclear reactors out of 56 are closed for maintenance or incident, the Minister of Ecological Transition, Barbara Pompili, interviewed Sunday on France Inter, wanted to be reassuring.
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"
We have indeed today too many nuclear reactors which are stopped
"
,
admitted all the same the minister, who justified these shutdowns, for some, by the disruption of the maintenance agendas linked to the Covid crisis -19, and for four of them, by "
a fault in sensitive areas for safety
"
,
"
which was not foreseen
".
In question, EDF announced last Wednesday that it had decided to shut down the two nuclear reactors at Chooz (Ardennes) "
as a precautionary measure
», And to extend the shutdown of the two reactors at the Civaux (Vienne) power plant, after the detection of faults near welds in the pipes of the safety injection circuit of the latter.
But no worries according to the minister.
A number of measures can be put in place to avoid any general blackout.
Restarting of certain reactors
First, Barbara Pompili claims to have asked Jean-Bernard Levy, CEO of EDF, to "
restart
" reactors shut down for maintenance and which were initially due to restart in mid-January. "
I asked that EDF employees work so that we can open the reactors earlier and face any shortages
," she said, thanking these employees who are preparing to "
work during the holidays
”.
Then the government can also resort to “
demand reduction contracts
” with companies.
"
On the days when we will need to have electricity for everyone, these companies will cut their electricity for periods stipulated by the contracts, they are paid for that and this allows to have wider margins
", a explained the Minister of Ecological Transition.
This procedure allows the State to ask certain companies to stop producing during peak periods.
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Finally, if it is really too cold, “
it is also possible to lower the tension a bit.
It's almost invisible,
”said Barbara Pompili.
Refined forecasts must be published by RTE, the electricity network, on December 30th.
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