The risk management gauge also qualitatively However this study presents a faulty methodologyIn short a triple ban to be lazy or negligentBut to focus solely on them causes two risksThis is the first vegetable consumed in the worldsaid Vincent Baudelet. For the time being They are stuck summarizes a European expertBut it is very likely that once the vote is passed the Center bubble deflatesHowever this is only a part of the projectAnd it is already declining in many developed countriesPrepare your candles! Because the power outage that plunged into the black part of Europe Saturday night no doubt Announces others. The diagnosis of specialists is clear: lack of sufficient investment in recent years, the European electricity sector is fragile. It is less well armed to deal with potential hits, such as a sudden wave of cold or an installation failure. Hard blows, with climate change, began to multiply. Result: cut risk continues to rise, even if the interconnections between European countries have so far avoided the worst, the complete blackout.
The fragility of the system is twofold. It obviously affects the lines high voltage, the weak point in issue this weekend. "Europe lacks notoriously transport capacity of the current, explains Marcel Bial, Secretary General of the Ucte, which brings together European operators." This is especially the case between North and South of the Germany. In recent years, was installed in the North of the country of wind capacity of 16,000 megawatts, but the transportation network to route to the South did not follow. "When, as a Saturday, it stops one of the few existing lines, it's overheating...
But the threat also, just upstream of the production. For years, electric Europe lived in overcapacity, with power plants to provide more current than actual consumption. This period is over. On the one hand, industrialists have limited their investments, and built little new power plants. Many have even been disconnected including, "out of the nuclear" in countries such as the Germany or put under cocoon. However, at the same time, the current consumption has continued to climb. In Europe, it is currently growing at a rate of 1.8 per year.
Consequence: the margin of safety of production, i.e. what operators were "under the foot" to provide more electricity in case of need, was markedly reduced. According to Ucte, this margin hit a low point of 4.6 in March 2005, compared with 5.8 a year previously. An overall figure, which cache here and there more critical cases yet. "The Belgium, the France, the Greece and the Hungary remain in a situation of delicate balance had negative margins for more than three months in 2005," said a Capgemini study published last month.
EUR 700 billion to invest
According to the Office of the Council, should be injected 700 billion euros by 2030 in production to avoid term electricity shortages. The movement is launched: for the first time since 1997, investment in the sector drove the increase. But companies remained cautious. With the ongoing liberalisation, they are no longer in monopoly, must live with very volatile electricity prices, and are reluctant to engage in the very long term projects.
Side also transport network, should invest. Here, "the problem is not financial, but administrative", explains André Merlin. The pattern of the French network knows whereof he speaks: in Provence, he would have liked to implement a high voltage of Manosque line in Nice, to reduce the risk of cut in this area. But, by environmental activists who accused EDF to disfigure the Verdon gorges, the Council of State has blocked the project.
A typical example. Because nobody accepts more power cuts, but each would like to wind turbines, power plants and high voltage lines to be constructed elsewhere than at home... New fault is probably required to permanently unblock the situation.
