Power cuts: what are the warning signs to spot?

The weather will be a decisive factor in whether or not power cuts are implemented this winter. If it is very cold and the heaters of all homes across France are running at full speed, the risk of a power surge in the network will be great. The electricity transmission manager RTE has indeed alerted consumers to the fact that it has very little visibility over the second half of November. The implementation of scheduled cuts is therefore not to be excluded, as reported by Midi Libre.

These cuts would not exceed 2 hours, and would have the function of relieving the network to avoid a generalized blackout. There is therefore no provisional outage plan, given that the load shedding measures will be triggered according to the real-time situation of the network. Real time nevertheless delayed by a few days, 3 days to be exact. Indeed, the “electricity weather forecast”, which you can find on the EcoWatt website, displays forecasts of the intensity of use of the electricity network 3 days in advance.

It will therefore be necessary to closely monitor the EcoWatt signal to anticipate possible cuts. If the alert turns red, you will have to reduce your consumption as much as possible to try to avoid the cut. When the EcoWatt signal remains red for two days in a row, the risk of a cut is very high for the day after tomorrow. The day before the potential load shedding, the forecast cuts will be confirmed one last time. Finally, in the evening before D-Day, it will be possible to know, still from the EcoWatt site and thanks to your postal address, if your accommodation will be affected by the power cut.

This latest very precise information will be available from 9:30 p.m. the day before the cut. If you want to avoid consulting the EcoWatt map all day long, a very practical device has been put in place by the managers of the electricity network. You can indeed subscribe to the “outage vigilance alert”, and thus receive SMS when the network is in a critical state.