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French energy giants urge consumers to cut back

The war in Ukraine could mean that France faces an energy shortage and soaring prices by the winter. Energy companies are pleading with their customers to reduce consumption.

Published: 26 June 2022 11:17 CEST

French energy giants are calling on customers to reduce their gas consumption as the war in Ukraine continues to rage.

French energy giants are calling on customers to reduce their gas consumption as the war in Ukraine continues to rage. (Photo by FRED TANNEAU / AFP)

Consumers should start cutting back on their energy use immediately, the bosses of France’s three big energy companies urged Sunday, warning of social tensions next winter unless reserves are replenished.

“The effort has to be immediate, collective and massive,” Patrick Pouyanne of TotalEnergies, Jean-Bernard Levy of EDF and Catherine MacGregor of ENGIE wrote in an op-ed piece in the JDD weekly.

READ MORE France no longer receiving any Russian gas via pipelines

The call came after the French government said this week it aimed to have its natural gas reserves at full capacity by autumn as European countries brace for supply cuts from major supplier Russia with the Ukraine war dragging on, and would build a floating terminal to receive more gas supplies by ship.

The three energy bosses said in the article that European energy production was further hampered by hydro-electric production suffering from drought.

“The surge in energy prices resulting from these difficulties threatens our social and political fabric and impacts families’ purchasing power too severely,” they said, adding: “The best energy is the one we don’t use.”

READ MORE How to save money on your energy bills in France

They said “every consumer and every company must change their habits and immediately limit their energy consumption, be it of electricity, gas or oil products”.

Replenishing reserves of natural gas over the summer is a priority, as is “eliminating the national waste” of energy, they said.

France is less dependent than neighbour Germany on Russian gas deliveries as it covers close to 70 percent of its electricity needs from nuclear energy.

But according to the International Energy Agency (IEA), France needs to accelerate the deployment of low-carbon energy technologies and energy efficiency solutions if it wants to reach its energy and climate targets.

France notably needs “more sustained and consistent policies” to develop alternatives to fossil fuels, such as wind and solar energy, the IEA said.

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France eyes spent uranium plant to bypass Russia: ministry

The only plant in the world that currently converts reprocessed uranium for use in nuclear power plants is in Russia.

“The option of carrying out an industrial project to convert reprocessed uranium in France is being seriously examined,” the French industry and energy ministry told AFP late Thursday.

“The associated conditions are still being studied,” the ministry said.

The announcement came after French daily Le Monde said that state-owned power utility EDF had no immediate plans to halt uranium trade with Russia, as Moscow’s war against Ukraine stretches into its third year.

Environment and climate NGO Greenpeace condemned the continuing uranium trade between Russia and France despite Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, and urged France to cut ties with Russia’s state nuclear power company Rosatom.

“If Emmanuel Macron wants to have a coherent stance on Ukraine, he must stop the French nuclear industry’s collaboration with Rosatom and demand the termination of Russian contracts,” Pauline Boyer of Greenpeace France said in
a statement to AFP on Friday.

“For the time being, his ‘support without limits’ for Ukraine has one limit: his business with Rosatom,” she said.

According to Le Monde, Jean-Michel Quilichini, head of the nuclear fuel division at EDF, said the company planned to continue to “honour” its 2018 contract with Tenex, a Rosatom subsidiary.

The contract stipulates that reprocessed uranium from French nuclear power plants is to be sent to a facility in the town of Seversk (formerly Tomsk-7) in western Siberia to be converted and then re-enriched before being reused in nuclear plants.

Since Russian President Vladimir Putin sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022, the West has imposed several rounds of sanctions on Moscow, but Russia’s nuclear power has remained largely unscathed.

Contacted by AFP, EDF said it was “maximising the diversification of its geographical sources and suppliers”, without specifying the proportion of its enriched reprocessed uranium supplies that comes from Russia.

‘Neither legitimate nor ethical’

Greenpeace said it was “scandalous” that EDF insisted on continuing honouring its agreement with Rosatom.

“It is neither legitimate nor ethical for EDF to continue doing business with Rosatom, a company in the service of Vladimir Putin, which has illegally occupied the Zaporizhzhia power plant in Ukraine for over two years, and is participating in the nuclear threat whipped up by Russia in this war,” Boyer said.

EDF said it and several partners were discussing “the construction of a reprocessed uranium conversion plant in Western Europe by 2030”.

“The fact that the French nuclear industry has never invested in the construction of such a facility on French soil indicates a lack of interest in
a tedious and unprofitable industrial process,” Greenpeace said in a report in 2021.

It accused France of using Siberia “as a garbage dump for the French nuclear industry”.

In recent years France has been seeking to resuscitate its domestic uranium reprocessing industry.

In early February, a reactor at the Cruas nuclear power station in southeastern France was restarted using its first recycled uranium fuel load, EDF said at the time.

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