- Screenshot 2022-09-04 at 15-22-10 Ecowatt your electricity weather forecast for responsible consumption.png (161.71 KiB) Viewed 1491 times
Shifting your electricity consumption can make the difference. This is the message that RTE wishes to convey through the Ecowatt system launched with Ademe. The tool, available free of charge on the Internet, allows you to know if there are tensions on the network and offers French people the possibility of receiving an alert in the event of a high risk in order to avoid power cuts by adopting simple eco-gestures such as example start your washing machine at 22 p.m. rather than 19 p.m.
Faced with electricity supply risks this winter, a tool would benefit from being widely distributed. This is the Ecowatt system, set up by RTE, the electricity network manager, and Ademe, the public agency responsible for ecological transition. First deployed in Brittany, PACA and Normandy-Ile-de-France, Écowatt was extended to the whole of France in 2020. The tool, available free of charge on the Internet, works like an electricity forecast which indicates in real time the level of electricity consumption of the country, region by region.
Equipped with an alert system in the event of a voltage or cut risk, it indicates the most appropriate times to reduce or shift consumption. It is therefore advisable to avoid starting your household appliances or recharging your electric car or mobile phone between 8 a.m. and 13 p.m. and between 18 p.m. and 20 p.m., during peak consumption. Seemingly innocuous, these eco-gestures, if they were massively applied, would have very concrete consequences on electricity consumption and would make it possible to avoid cuts, assures RTE. Thus, if all the French turned off a single light bulb, 600 megawatts would be saved, equivalent to the electricity consumption of a city like Toulouse.
The power of a nuclear reactor saved
Another example, on April 4, during the cold snap. RTE's Ecowatt alert announcing a voltage on the electricity grid has prevented the power equivalent of the production of a nuclear reactor, "a sign that a conscious and well-informed consumer has the power to act and 'have an impact on a national scale' comments Nicolas Goldberg, in a note published this summer by the Terra Nova think tank on sobriety.
"To the weather forecasts of the news channels could for example be added an 'energy weather forecast', the latter being highly dependent on temperatures, to raise awareness of the risks of electricity supply on certain days" proposes the Energy specialist. The objective is for voltages on the electrical network to become information as widely disseminated and integrated as are, for example, the bulletins of Bison Fûté, so that everyone can act accordingly.
The system is aimed at individuals as well as communities and businesses. The Carrefour group has already committed to reducing or staggering its electricity consumption in its stores during periods of high tension for the electrical system (red signal), by lowering, for example, the light intensity of its stores or by reducing the heating. Other companies will join the system, of which a new simplified version will be deployed in September.
Well, there is a good chance that the cuts this winter are not a conspiracy theory...
source: https://www.novethic.fr/actualite/energ ... 51012.html
Discover the tool: https://www.monecowatt.fr/
