Paris Cuts Lights To Save Energy

BY NICK KOSTOV / WSJ

PARIS—The City of Light is going dark. Luxury shops across the city are turning off their nighttime lights, plunging the Avenue de Montaigne and other areas renowned for evening window shopping into relative darkness. Tourists are showing up to monuments for late-night photos, only to find somber silhouettes. Even the Eiffel Tower, symbol of France’s rise as an industrialized nation, is hitting the off switch early. The measures come in response to French President Emmanuel Macron’s call for “energy sobriety.” The government has asked municipalities, households and U.S. sales at burger chain restaurants, 2021 Source: Technomic McDonald’s Wendy’s Burger King Sonic Drive-In Jack in the Box $46 billion $11.1 $10 $5.8 $4.2 Russia Moves to Repair Bridge to Crimea After Attack REPAIRS: Workers restored railway tracks Sunday on the Kerch bridge linking Crimea to Russia, a day after it was damaged by an explosion that Russia blamed on Ukraine. The damage could hurt Moscow’s war effort in southern Ukraine. A7 AFP/GETTY IMAGES companies to reduce their energy consumption by 10% over two years to counter Russia’s decision to cut the flow of natural gas to Europe. Others across the continent are making their own adjustments. Italy’s government plans to restrict the heating in homes and businesses. The Netherlands is urging residents to shorten their shower times. Finland is encouraging its population to cut the amount of time they spend on digital devices. Monuments in Germany are also going dark. French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire recently said that he would wear turtlenecks this winter as a way to keep warm and save energy The next day, Mr. Macron also appeared in a turtleneck. The efforts have even some government officials asking whether some of the gestures are justified, or if they don’t sufficiently move the needle in Europe’s energy crisis. “Sobriety isn’t to stop living, working and receiving tourists. Sobriety is making the savings that make the most sense in terms of energy consumption,” Mr. Macron’s energy minister, Agnès Pannier-Runacher, told television news channel BFM. Turning off monument lights, she added, “is probably not the biggest source of energy savings.” Paris hasn’t estimated the energy savings from dimming the lights alone. It’s one of a range of measures that the city expects will cut energy usage by about 8%, including plans to lower thermostats in its buildings. Mayor Anne Hidalgo has said the darkened monuments send a signal to residents that they, too, need to save energy. “We must stop believing that people are only attracted by light,” said Paris Deputy Mayor Emmanuel Gregoire. “People are not mosquitoes.” The European Union has recommended that countries voluntarily curb their gas consumption by 15%. Those that relied heavily on Russian natural gas, including Germany and Italy, might need to cut consumption even more. The target, proposed by the EU’s executive, could become mandatory in an emergency with some exceptions. Whether countries run out of natural gas this winter will depend on many factors, including how effective companies and governments are in stockpiling the fuel, reducing consumption and diversifying supplies. It will also hinge on the weather. A long, harsh winter would increase gas demand for heating and could lead governments to ration gas. France unveiled its 50-page plan to save energy during a news conference this week that featured nine government ministers and lasted more than three hours. The government is a major energy consumer in France, and measures included cutting off hot water in public building bathrooms and capping heating at 64 degrees in all public buildings, including courthouses and publicly run museums. Ministers said official vehicles would need to reduce their speed to save energy. Driving at around 68 miles an hour rather than 80 miles an hour on highways reduces fuel consumption by a fifth, the report said. The measures urge the French to make a number of changes at home: Use electrical appliances like dishwashers and washing machines only outside peak consumption hours, unplug computers and TVs that aren’t in use and take shorter showers. The government has also suggested that companies ask employees to work from home on certain days, allowing offices to go dark to save energy. The national employers federation Medef pushed back on any proposal to increase working from home. France’s report said that public lighting is the second largest consumer of energy for municipalities after regulating the temperature of buildings, representing 31% of their electricity expenditure. The Mediterranean city of Nice has also set a target of reducing energy consumption by a tenth this winter, in part by extinguishing the facades of museums as well as all decorative lighting in the city between 11 p.m. and 5 a.m. “We will publish our electricity and gas consumption every week,” said Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne. “Depending on this and the weather, we will see if we have made the necessary energy savings.” The cut in Russian gas has already led to factory closures across Europe, threatening the region’s economy, which is more reliant on the likes of steelmakers, chemical producers and car makers than the U.S. Governments hope that finding incremental savings, such as through turning off lights at landmarks, will be enough to get them through winter. In Paris, where tourism is a big piece of the economy, the new sobriety is particularly visible due to the quantity and star power of its attractions. The ornamental exteriors of city-owned structures are now turned off at 10 p.m., including the gothic Tour Saint-Jacques, the arched facade of the Petit Palais and the giant Hôtel de Ville, or city hall. The Palace of Versailles—a symbol of excess in prerevolutionary France—is doing the same. The Eiffel Tower’s lights turn off two hours early, at 11:45 p.m., when the monument closes for tourists. Lighting up its hundreds of lights has traditionally accounted for roughly 4% of its power consumption, according to the company that operates the monument. On a recent evening, Asia Willis, a film and TV publicist from Los Angeles, was surprised to discover the glass pyramid of the Louvre museum had lost its jewel-like splendor. The structure—usually illuminated from within late into the night, punctuating the courtyard of the former royal palace—had become a void. “I’m really sad,” Ms. Willis said. “It’s really unfortunate that it’s dark. It’s still a really beautiful sight, but I wish the lights were up. I love the architecture. It’s a missed opportunity. The city gets so many tourists, especially this museum.” Paris came to be called the City of Light in the 17th century, when its police chief tried to improve security at night by installing thousands of lanterns and torches. Two centuries later, the city became a leader in urban electrification. France is usually a net exporter of electricity. But the loss of Russian gas, along with technical problems across its fleet of nuclear plants, has forced the country to import electricity. EDF SA, the world’s largest owner of nuclear-power plants, is vital to Europe’s energy supply. Unexpected corrosion on the cooling systems of its nuclear reactors in France as well as maintenance have forced more than half of its 56 reactors offline. The issues have resulted in France’s nuclear output reaching a 30- year low. Hervé Laporte, 55, who runs a small dry cleaning business in Paris, said that he has been trying to save energy. “When you’re a small business, your energy expenditure is crystal clear in your balance sheet at the end of the year,” he said. With energy costs high and business slow, he has had to make changes. He pointed to a machine that irons clothes automatically. “It’s been a year since I turned it on. It consumes a lot of watts,” he said. He called turning off lights at Paris monuments “small potatoes.” “You look around and offices are lit, probably with old bulbs that consume a lot of energy,” he said. “It’s all PR. The Eiffel Tower going dark, Parisians couldn’t care less. There are serious savings to be found.” In Paris’s “golden triangle” shopping district, boutiques owned by LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton SE now turn off their lights between 10 p.m. and 7 a.m., one of a range of measures the company has rolled out to save energy. Luxury stores have traditionally kept the lights on later into the night, allowing storefronts to essentially act as billboards. LVMH encountered some technical difficulties in making sure that its dozens of brands, including Dior and Tiffany, would turn off the lights in their stores earlier, said Hélène Valade, environmental development director at LVMH. One challenge, she said, is that the luxury group didn’t have control over when to switch off the lights at some of its stores, because they don’t always own the actual buildings. The company is now ensuring that its more than 500 stores in France are fitted with electric meters to give it better control over their energy use, Ms. Valade said. The conglomerate will be extending its new energy-saving measures through Europe in November, and the rest of the world after that. More restrictions are on the way with Christmas approaching. The Champs-Elysées, the city’s most famous avenue, will have festive lighting for six weeks this year, rather than seven in previous years. The Champs-Elysées committee has also asked that all boutiques, shopfronts and screens on the avenue turn off their lights after 10 p.m. from Oct. 15, with the exception of restaurants and cinemas. Romain Tang Thaï Sen, 20, was walking through Paris with a friend on a recent evening. The darkened Eiffel Tower was a statement, he said, for people far beyond city limits. “Turning off the lights,” he said, “these are values that we have to spread through the entire world.”