Advice for Europeans: Bundle Up and Get Ready for Outages

Any scheduled power cuts in France would be telegraphed days in advance and would hit small sections of the country at different times, the government said. The cuts, which would last for two hours in the mornings or in early evening, when power use is at a high, would not apply to so-called sensitive sites, including hospitals, nursing homes, fire and police stations and prisons.

Europe has made a concerted effort since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February to avoid a worst-case situation by topping up natural gas reserves and even restarting coal-fired power plants to generate electricity. A near-total embargo on Russian oil begins Monday, one of many actions the bloc has taken to deny the Kremlin revenue from fossil fuel sales and limit its ability to wage war in Ukraine.

Unseasonably warm weather during October and November allowed households and businesses to keep their furnaces turned off, helping gas stocks last longer than expected and bringing down skyrocketing gas prices.

But Europe is now facing its first major cold snap, with an Arctic air blast from Greenland expected to send temperatures plunging in coming days. Governments have already been dipping into some of the emergency gas reserves, driving European natural gas prices back up to their highest levels in six weeks.

France, once Europe’s biggest exporter of electricity thanks to its 56 nuclear power plants, is struggling to repair a series of problems that have left nearly half of its atomic fleet offline, depriving its neighbors of a vital power source. Électricité de France, or EDF, which runs France’s nuclear power plants, announced the restart last week of a mammoth reactor in northern France, although further delays are expected at other nuclear sites.

A recent report by the European Network of Transmission System Operators showed that electricity supplies in France, Sweden and Finland, among others, were at risk of outages.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/05/business/europe-france-power-outages.html