How can we encourage French businesses and individuals to better distribute their electricity consumption throughout the day as lifestyle habits and production methods evolve? The energy regulation commission (CRE) is working on the subject. The whole challenge is to make off-peak hours (TC), which concern some 15 million subscribers, more attractive.
The issues are quite simple. What is the point of placing off-peak hours at night if the country benefits from abundant and inexpensive electricity during the day, when the photovoltaic panels are operating at full capacity? We must “bring prices and production capacities into consistency,” summarizes Emmanuelle Wargon, president of the CRE.
On the consumption side, habits have evolved. In addition to heating in winter, air conditioning is increasingly added in summer. Water heaters, which consume a lot of electricity, are becoming more efficient, with the possibility of programming staggered operating ranges. The specter of a consumption peak at the end of the day has not disappeared: the development of electric vehicles raises fears of a surge at the end of the day. However, why charge at 6 p.m. or 7 p.m., if it is to leave the next day at 7 a.m.? In other words, how can we encourage consumers not to turn on their heating, their oven, start the washing machines, plug in their car, all between 7 p.m. and 8 p.m., when they get home? With new off-peak and peak hours!
This also implies that the differentiation between peak and off-peak hours is more advantageous, for example, by increasing the pricing differences between the two periods. The CRE is in discussions with Enedis. “The objective is to arrive at a pattern in which there would be off-peak hours at midday in summer and at night in winter,” explains Emmanuelle Wargon. This is a huge project for the supplier information system and for Enedis.
The reflection is part of a broader framework, relating to future tariffs for the use of public electricity networks (TURPE). They should increase to take into account the enormous investment needs, nearly 200 billion euros, which should be made by the manager of the electricity transmission network (RTE) and that of the distribution network (Enedis ) by 2024. To encourage consumers to better control their consumption, the most logical thing would be to increase the price per kilowatt hour more than that of the subscription. But for the moment, this complicated start with many implications is very, very far from having been decided and nothing should be decided before 2025.