March 7 in eastern France. SEBASTIEN BOZON v AFP
A “level never reached” since the start of the movement against the pension reform project, according to the CGT.
The EDF strikers carried out significant cost reductions on the means of electricity production on Thursday, even reaching, according to the CGT, a “level never reached“Since the start of the movement against the pension reform project. Some “22,258 MW (megawatts, Ed) subtracted from the network, a level never before reached” Who “represents more than a third of instantaneous consumption“said the union in a press release.
For its part, EDF indicated that it had observed at 08:00 a.m. 13,790 MW of load drops in the first quarter of the day, leading the manager of the high-voltage lines RTE, guarantor of network security, to issue a safety message for two hours. network to limit load drops. RTE can send safety messages to the strikers if it considers that the reductions in production run the risk of cuts for users. It is then up to the employees to respect them.
«At 3:30 p.m., the drop in load on our means of production is 15,810 MW: 3,300 MW for nuclear, 4,680 MW for thermal combustion and 7,830 MW of loss of power available on the hydraulic park.“Added EDF. Nuclear reactors produce between 900 and 1450 MW.
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31.8% strikers at the end of the day
On January 19, during the first day of action, the fall in production had reached 7,000 MW according to the CGT and 5,000 according to management. On March 7, the nuclear fleet had recorded a drop in cumulative load of 14,900 MW and the power available on the dams fell by 7,000 MW, according to EDF. EDF identified 31.8% of strikers at the end of the day Thursday against 27.4% on March 15.
Two power cuts also affected nearly 100,000 customers Thursday in Toulouse, as well as traffic lights in the city center, in full demonstration which was marked at the end of the afternoon by acts of violence, garbage fires and some ransacked bus shelters. “These are malicious acts, wild cuts, so we will file a complaint“, told AFP a representative of the management of Enedis about these cuts.