Which French cities consume the most electricity? – Liberation

Question asked on November 17th

“Which cities consume the most energy per capita?” To answer this question, a study was carried out by the start-up Up Energie, a consultancy and support platform for energy saving. This, unveiled in Aprilhad been covered extensively in the media, from Capital to TF1, and has continued to be mentioned regularly ever since – as here, in October, on News Marseille.

And his results are quite surprising, if we limit ourselves to geography alone: ​​the cities and departments that consume the most electricity per inhabitant are located in the south and west of France, although Aix-en-Provence, Bordeaux and Nice, the three cities with more than 100,000 inhabitants top the list, are not known for their harsh winters. Conversely, the cities of Saint-Etienne and Mulhouse, largely exposed to the winter cold, are among the most sober “big cities” in the country. Watching the ranking of the 116 most populated cities in France (and no longer just those with more than 100,000 inhabitants), we find this partition between South and North. The five most consuming cities are Fréjus, Cannes, Antibes, Montauban and Narbonne. The five least consuming cities are Nanterre, Belfort, Aubervilliers, Bobigny and Créteil.

How was this study conducted?

Contacted by CheckNewsthe co-founder of Up Energie, Alexis Beaumont, explains that the study was conducted using energy consumption data from the ORE agency, an open data platform for electricity and gas distributors, and those from INSEE (excerpt here) in terms of population. Data sources which were then combined, dividing the electricity consumption of the residential sector of each department or of each city, to obtain the displayed results.

The annual data dates back to 2019 for the population and 2020 for energy consumption.

How to explain these results?

As indicated above, the total energy consumption of cities or departments was not taken into consideration, but only the electricity consumption of the residential sector (therefore of private homes). It should also be noted that this is a consumption throughout the year, thus including both summer and winter.

The first factor explaining the results is the heating mode. If the house is heated with gas, oil or wood, the corresponding electricity consumption is zero, even if heating represents 66% of the energy consumption of a house, according to Adem. However, the method of heating buildings globally overlaps the Up Energies map: according to one study commissioned by Butagaz and the Synasav (National Union for Maintenance Services and Energy Efficiency), buildings in the country’s Atlantic and Mediterranean coast regions (offices included) were heated by 39% or more with electricity, versus only 21% in Grand Est or 26% in Hauts-de-France.

The other important explanatory factor would be the quality of the insulation. “The residences in the South did not focus on the quality of the insulation, while the houses in the North retain the heat more”, explains Alexis Beaumont, citing in particular the thinness of the walls, the impact of the wind or the presence of numerous electric heaters. Is air conditioning, which city dwellers in the south of France use the most, also an explanatory factor? “The impact of air conditioning (more relevant in the South, ed) is there, but it doesn’t explain this disparity”Adds.

Finally, it should be added that these geographical factors obviously include the social dimension, the consumption of electricity being strongly indexed to the household income level. This also explains why we find ‘poor’ cities at the bottom of the table, and ‘rich’ cities at the top.

One question remains: could the coronavirus-related outages have skewed the results? “These trends were already observed before 2020”specifies Alexis Beaumont, who indicates that the study will be updated once the data for 2021 is revealed.

Are more consumer departments more at risk of cuts?

This option does not seem to be on the agenda: since the national electricity grid is interconnected, any area can be affected by “load shedding”. Guest in France Inter on December 5, Xavier Piechaczyk, chairman of the board of RTE France, confirmed the cut scenario “rotating, localized, temporary” if necessary. The government, him indicates on its site want “distribute the “cut” areas throughout the continental metropolitan area, with a two-hour rotation system”.

The risk of cutting yourself will be indicated by a red signal on the Ecowatt website ; the potentially affected areas will be indicated from the day before at 17, on Ecowatt or on temporary cutssite linked to the Enedis electricity distributor.