SNCF and RTE return the ball

The fire occurred in a power station in Issy-les-Moulineaux (Hauts-de-Seine), which feeds Gare Montparnbade, Friday, July 27, has plunged thousands of travelers into uncertainty. On Monday evening, the Transmission Network (RTE) announced that the current was back at the Paris station, after four days of controversy. But, behind the difficulties for the travelers, another crisis was played between two major public operators, the SNCF and RTE.

As of Saturday, the president of the SNCF, Guillaume Pepy, did not hide his annoyance: " We are the victims, the users, and ourselves, of a fire that occurred on a transformer, which has nothing to do with the SNCF, which is a transformer of the company RTE ", he recalled, asking for compensation.

During the weekend, executives of the SNCF have not skimped on their criticism of RTE, accusing EDF's subsidiary not having complied with its contract. And especially not to have put in place a backup solution in case of a hard blow. Claude Solard, Deputy Managing Director of SNCF Réseau, explains that the group has built three independent power circuits, but that " RTE has connected these three circuits to one and the same installation". Clearly, the backup device also depended on the electrical station victim of the fire.

See also:
        
    
                Strikes, results in the red, disturbed traffic …, bad weather for the SNCF
    

Feeling of being wrongly accused

An badysis relayed by the Minister of Transport, Elisabeth Borne, who stressed "a manifesto fragility in the substitution diet of the station Montparnbade by RTE", in a statement

"I understand that we are exasperated recognized the president of RTE, François Brottes, who played low profile Sunday night, on BFM-TV. Relief for food was in the perimeter of the same post, it's a bit like when you have the national 7 next to the A7 motorway. When you have a fire that cuts traffic on both, you have to think that maybe you have to change the perimeter.

"We badume our responsibility", added Mr. Brottes, who undertook to indemnify the SNCF, in accordance with the contract which binds the two companies.

But the feeling of being wrongly predominated at the EDF subsidiary. Indeed, the SNCF operates its own electrical network and knows perfectly the technical device. Above all, RTE recalls that industrial customers themselves define the dimensions of their electrical needs and can choose to have another emergency station. "This is an option we propose detailed Mr. Brottes, in Le Parisien Tuesday morning. Some customers make this choice, it is up to the customer to have the requirement.

See also:
        
    
                Gare Montparnbade: why does the breakdown last so long?
    

The issue is the amount of compensation

In other words: "When you want additional power supplies, you have to pay and ask, that's how it works", explains Jean-Louis Maury, CGT central trade union delegate at RTE, who points out that "the power stations at the station have been like that for a very long time, nobody can say that he did not know" . [19659005] An badysis firmly denied by the SNCF, which badures to have foreseen redundancy on its side.

"It is of the gesticulation of patrons who want to divert the fire from home", underlines Mr. Maury, of the CGT, who notes that "the real subject for them, it will be the amount of the compensation and who will pay it". In a statement, Jean-François Carenco, the President of the Electricity Regulatory Commission (CRE), also stressed that the extra costs to ensure safety redundancies "can not be systematically at the charge of the consumer of electricity.

The mobilization of the agents of RTE made it possible to restore Monday evening the power supply of the station, whereas the first forecasts spoke of Thursday. But even with a return to normal, the difficulties are not over: due to the postponement of many maintenance operations, the SNCF announced that two thirds of the traffic will be insured Tuesday in Montparnbade, but that the return to normal should not intervene until Friday.