La Réunion Island’s electricity production and distribution system dates back to the last century, and has not kept pace with the technological advances made possible by renewable energies. Production is essentially concentrated in a few power plants owned by two companies from outside Réunion: EDF and Albioma. They burn imported primary energy: oil purchased from the Avril group in France and wood imported from North America. As a result, a single incident at these plants can have far-reaching consequences.

Electricity prices up 43% in 2 years

This is what happened yesterday following the simple failure of a machine in EDF’s thermal power plant in Le Port: around 172,000 subscribers were without electricity from 10:30 and for the rest of the morning. The Reunionese are not used to load shedding due to a lack of production. Reactions were numerous. In particular, they criticized the poor quality of service, given the 43% increase in electricity prices over the past 2 years.
The root of the problem lies in the fact that the equipment is obsolete from the outset, and was imposed on the Reunionese when a local solution was possible.
The current plant replaces an older one located in a populated area of Le Port. The latter was no longer up to standard. At this point, the Agence régionale de l’énergie Réunion (ARER), published a study proving that it was possible not to replace this oil-fired plant with another oil-fired one.
The ARER study indicated that the development of renewable energies, in particular solar power, and the reduction in consumption would make it possible to dispense with this costly investment, which future generations will have to manage when the power plant is decommissioned at the end of its life. ARER member EDF responded by forbidding ARER to produce another study of this kind.

Power plant already anachronistic when built

As a result, EDF was able to build a thermal power plant on La Reunion Island at the beginning of the 21st century. This was already an anachronism at a time when the world was becoming aware of the need to do away with this old model and replace it with the cleaner, less costly renewable energy model.
Yesterday’s blackout is a reminder of one of the consequences of this choice. Let’s hope that, with the inevitable ageing of this equipment, breakdowns don’t multiply.
This is a reminder that the biomass burned in this plant is a transitional energy source, and that we need to move as quickly as possible towards La Réunion Island’s energy autonomy based on renewable energies. This was planned for 2025, but the victory of an ally of the fossil fuel lobby in the 2010 regional elections demolished the plan. Now we’re talking about 2050... and La Réunion Island has gone from being a leader to being a laggard.

M.M.