France’s energy regulator has called on businesses and consumers to save power by turning down heating and air conditioning and switching off lights.
Until now, the EU and western governments have focused on finding alternative sources of supply to replace Russian gas, including by accelerating investment in renewable energies, and only a few have emphasised the benefits of reducing consumption.
“We have to economise on gas and electricity in France from today or else things could get difficult next winter,” Jean-François Carenco, president of the Commission for the Regulation of Energy, told the business newspaper Les Echos.
“Everybody should make an effort: manufacturers, service providers, public buildings but also every individual,” Carenco said. “Whether it means turning down the heating, the air-conditioning, the lights - it’s urgent and everyone must play their part.”
Other energy measures envisaged in France include the doubling of voluntary load-shedding by big industrial energy consumers when the electricity grid is under stress and the rapid approval of a floating LNG terminal for Le Havre being developed by TotalEnergies and Engie, to speed imports of LNG to the EU from gas producers other than Russia.
