The economic recovery following the health crisis, along with the war in Ukraine, have resulted in strong tensions in the European energy markets. Although not all French companies were immediately affected by this surge in energy prices, they were encouraged to reduce their energy consumption to protect themselves from possible shortages.

With regard specifically to electricity, from monthly data on electricity withdrawal by almost 500 energy-intensive companies connected directly to the Electricity Transmission Network (Réseau de Transport d’Électricité - RTE), energy-saving behaviours could be identified in the course of H2 2022. Electricity consumption by these businesses would seem to have fallen back in December 2022 by about 22% year-on-year.

By studying the sub-sample of around 200 companies which also appear in INSEE’s business tendency survey, the electricity consumption of each company could be measured against change in its economic activity, as reported in the survey. This microeconometric analysis suggests that half of the decline in electricity consumption (i.e. about 11 points) would seem to represent energy-saving behaviour by the companies considered, i.e. a drop in electricity consumption independently of any change in their activity. The other half of this downturn in electricity consumption can probably be explained by a drop in production by these companies. However, at a more aggregated level, production indices in the corresponding energy-intensive branches would appear to suggest a more moderate drop in activity, which may reflect a selection bias in the sample used for the microeconometric analysis: the activity of companies connected directly to the RTE network did indeed seem to have deteriorated more than activity in their sector over the period studied.

Due to the qualitative nature of the measurement of activity in the business tendency surveys, the estimate of energy-saving behaviours remains somewhat imprecise. These results also encourage us to look at the determinants of energy-saving by these energy-intensive industrial companies. Changes in energy-saving behaviour at the end of 2022 would seem to be more apparent in companies that, in previous years, had improved their energy efficiency only moderately or not at all. These companies would thus have potentially more useful room for manoeuvre than those companies that had already achieved a certain degree of energy efficiency...