Industrialists are ready to try to reduce their energy consumption by 10 % to spend the winter without cuts. They also call on individuals to take their share of effort.
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The injunction of the Prime Minister to the meetings of the French entrepreneurs of Medef on Monday August 29, resounded as the echo of the speech of her distant predecessor Pierre Messmer, during the oil shock of 1973, when the crude price had Quadruple: Moderate your energy consumption. Elisabeth Borne invited companies to register in a 10 %decline trajectory, a objective that the head of state, Emmanuel Macron, had set at 2024 in his television interview on July 14. This effort is the pledge, according to the government, of a winter period without rationing or brutal cuts.
Geoffroy Roux de Bézieux, president of Medef, estimated that the 10 %objective, which is “not impossible” to reach quickly even if it is very ambitious, is “absolutely essential” to avoid rationing or load shedding. Companies, rarely covered in full by long -term supply contracts, are encouraged by the exorbitant prices of various energies: gas has reached 350 euros per megawatt hour (MWH) for 2023, pushed by the Russian threat of a total closure of its gas pipelines; Electricity for 2023 also exceeded 1,000 euros per MWh at the end of the week, twenty times more than early 2021; The barrel of Brent of the North Sea is up to $ 105.
M terminal above all underlined the threats weighing on gas supply, even if stocks for winter are now reconstructed at 90 %, approaching the 100 % start target November set by the government. This will not prevent industrialists from having to make an effort of sobriety. In July, the European Commission had set a general framework for twenty-seven, each Member State having to reduce its gas consumption by 15 % between August 2022 and March 2023. Nothing like electricity.
Now it is the price of electricity which is “the main subject of concern” of MEDEF – due to the price, the judgment of 32 of the 56 nuclear reactors of EDF and of a reduced hydroelectric production by drought. For business leaders, you must first spend the winter of 2023. Not all sectors are exhibited. Electro-intensive factories (aluminum, chlorine, steel, cardboard, cement, glass, etc.), which represent 70 % of the industry’s electricity demand, are in an unprecedented situation, while it can represent From 15 % to 50 % of production costs. Large distribution, energy delicious to maintain its cold chain, will turn off bright brands.
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