Compensation

Weather: can you be compensated in case of a power cut?

Publié le 15 novembre 2023 - Legal and Administrative Information Directorate (Prime Minister)

Your department was hit by the storms in early November? Do you know that long-term power cuts can give right to compensation? Service-Public.fr reminds us of the conditions.

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Image 1Crédits: Creative Cat Studio - stock.adobe.com

The order recognizing the state of natural disaster for storm Ciaran in northern France was issued on 14 November. In addition to their insurance, residents of the affected regions will be able to obtain compensation if they have suffered a cut to the electricity grid.

Compensation provided for by the regulations

Since 2021, the regulations have provided for a lump-sum compensation mechanism for long cut. It concerns ‘any interruption of supply for more than 5 hours due to a failure caused by the public distribution network managed by the distribution system operator, including during exceptional events’.

This is indicated in the Deliberation of the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) of January 21, 2021 (Annex 7 - Incentive regulation of power quality).

How is it calculated?

The compensation comes into effect in the event of a long power outage. The compensation mechanism kicks in in increments of 5 consecutive hours.

Users receive 2 € HT per kVA (kilovolt-ampere) of subscribed power (3,5 € HT if the subscribed power is greater than 36 kVA) per 5-hour cut-off period.

There's a limit of 40 slices, or electricity cut off for 8 days and 8 hours.

Example :

for a household with a subscription of 12 kVA (power recommended for a house of 100 square meters all electric), the compensation will be 24 € per cut-off band, or 1 152 € if the limit is reached.

Warning  

in order for there to be compensation, the CRE deliberation specifies that the power cut must not affect more than 20% of final customers in the territory. This threshold was not reached during storm Ciaran.

How to perceive it?

The electricity manager shall pay the compensation directly to the energy supplier and the supplier shall then deduct it from the customer's invoice.

You don't have to do anything, but you can make sure that the line appears on your next invoice if you are concerned.

Please note

this compensation scheme is applicable not only to the incumbent distributor Enedis but also to the local companies of distribution (ELD), which are operators of autonomous distribution networks still present in certain territories.

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