Thank you, found it and done it. 
Well done.
Thank you @Stella for the EcoWatt link. I signed up for cut alerts.
Still waiting to see what will be the contingency regarding calls to emergency services (not withstanding @JaneJones ’s excellent picture of hammering on the Maire’d front door. Must find out where our Maire lives.)
“ One of the key concerns is the question of how to maintain telephone access to emergency numbers, an issue the government admits it has not yet resolved.
In addition, police chiefs will be asked to reinforce patrols in the absence of street lights in public spaces and deal with a contingency plan for public transport, notably electric trains.
“Nothing is excluded, nothing is confirmed. But it’s our responsibility, and we are preparing,” Véran said, insisting that the government’s intention was not to frighten the population.”
But now I have some worries I didn’t already have regarding street lighting and marauders
Do we have the feeling that this is all quite reasonable and rather tiny compared to what the poor UK is in line for suffering?
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Yes indeed. It’s a maximum of 2 hours at a stretch, there is plenty of warning and of course it may not happen at all. The careful planning is very impressive compared with “other places”.
In terms of internet connection - a while back we bought the teeniest UPS you’ve ever seen in order to keep the Livebox running, It seems to last 6 to 8 hours…
For years people kept buying me candles for presents and I never used them because they were attractive. Now I have a big stock of all types of candles that will come in useful plus no exposed interior wooden beams or stairs that previously would have been a fire hazard. I also made sure I bought a big box of matches to light them, spare batteries and three torches and have just finished a big crocheted blanket I started a good tenyears ago and never finished it. My son made a fuss abut all the spare quilts and blankets I brought down in the move saying I would notneed them, well we shall see now as they could be very useful having only electric heating. I’ve also got several woolly hats and scarves for extra warmth as well and with all the snow on the Pyrenees blowing cold down on the coast here its dropped in temperature considerably this past couple of days compared to balmy temps last week.
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Thanks Stella
According to M Macron… if we all do our best to keep electricity needs as low as possible… there probably won’t be any cuts this Winter…
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This very minute my mobile rang and it was EDF. Blimey I thought, that was quick, I thought the cuts would come much later.
Just a message saying that they confirmed my signing up to Alertes. 
So, thinking ahead and if warned of cuts coming we will not be able to go shopping, buy petrol,do banking online or in agencies, have a mobile phone that works except for 112. Kids won’t have school meals or perhaps not even go to classes, no crêche for working families if no heating. There is a hell of a lot of things that will be affected that we take for granted every day. Burglaries may be on the increase with no evening lights and personal attacks in cities by muggers out to get what they can. It really is quite a frightening prospect and as I was reminded today, my electric shutters would have to opened before the early cut off and down before the evening cut to keep up my security. Those with electric gates would need to open them by hand also and security entry into blocks of flats would be hard too.
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What you’ve listed describes the horror for those areas which have blackouts due to storms… and sometimes they last for days.
At least the “known/predicted” blackouts will only be brief and will not touch 60%… and, of course, they won’t be happening if use is reduced during peak times…
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Yes fingers crossed but still annoyed at all the wasteful lighting in big stores, garages etc and the heating in Leroy Merlin earlier was full blast again.
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Ah… that’s worth knowing… we need some bits from that store and can warm ourselves while we shop…
Looks like we are going back to the dark ages…
THE PANIC…
It was a warning and a list of preparations in case there is no reduction in electrivity use
.
If people are sensible in their approach to every day electricity consumption 2 hour powercuts will NOT be neccessary.
I cannot really see apocalyptic scenes playing out - somehow that scenario belongs to inner city USA.
Prepare as far as candles, flashlight, extra blankets, perhaps a powerbank for laptop etc. IMO a 2 hr power outage with advance warning does not make for great hardship
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Yes, I was just listing the everyday things that need power and for which forward planning might be useful especially the shutter thing as mine only work on electricity. Up in Bretagne we were 7 days without power but had a genny which two neighbours also joined onto, the three of us to power our deep freezers only. Now that was miserable!
In one of the previous “once in fifty years” storms that we had we were without power for five days. It was fine - if tedious. And yes we were able to go shopping, etc etc. And no, we were not burgled. The world did not stop. We’re fortunate in having alternatives - we have campingaz lighting (just in case) which is bright and strong, a calor gas cooker so we can boil kettles for tea / hot water bottle / etc and portable calor gas heaters. And a Godin wood burning stove in the lounge.
We got a bit bored with it all and our local town got reconnected before we did so we went into the restaurant alongside Leclerc one evening for warmth and supper and to be able to sit in a brightly lit place. Nothing like as dystopian as you have portrayed. 
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To a point.
My “quaintly medieval” post was a bit flippant - I didn’t have time for a long post but I can’t be alone in my concern as Susannah’s later post shows.
The problem is that we *have* gone backwards in this particular respect. In the 70’s and 80’s when no-one had even heard of the Internet but most people had a land line exchanges in large towns would have batteries and generators - normally enough for 48 hours, exchanges in small towns and villages would have batteries typically for 4-8 hours outage.
No everyone is connected to VDSL or fibre cabinets which, while they might have a UPS, are too small to have enough battery capacity for more than a few tens of minutes - really just enough to protect against short term “brown-outs” (like a black out, but not as dark).
The excuse for dropping the requirement for continuously available landlines has tended to be “well, everyone has a mobile” - which is no use when there’s no mobile signal and the base station only has a couple of hours battery back up itself.
So, yes, we actually have gone backwards.
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RDV booked for Friday - as I said, not so much use this week but might be important for the next visit. It’s ****** freezing in the house at the moment but the heating is on and it’s gradually warming up - I doubt it will be warmer in Jan, and if there’s going to be power cuts I’d like to not be completely dependant on the heat pump for warmth.
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I can personally recommend using an indoor coat 
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