Fighting the Power
Adventures with the French Electric Company
When Carolyn and I completed the closing and moved into our new apartment, the power was up and running normally. Our agent Agnès had taken care of transferring the electricity account into our name at Total Energies. We had hot water, we could run the blow dryer and the dishwasher at the same time while simultaneously cooking on an induction cooktop. Everything was great, and we thought the account was settled. We thought everything was perfect.
Oh, the naiveté.
After a week in the apartment we left town for three days to visit friends. When we returned, our apartment was completely blacked out. We searched through all the emails Agnès had sent us and found one about resetting the Linky meter (which was like resetting the breaker.) It was easy—we just had to press the prominent green button for a few seconds.
All good, right? Wrong! Later, when I went to make dinner, the induction cooktop caused the Linky to turn off the power again. I reset the Linky, and I resumed cooking. It turned off again. Hmmm.
I tried cooking with only one burner, and as long as I kept it on low and kept a few lights off, the power stayed on, but I couldn’t turn up the burner enough to get a medium size pot of water boiling.
More crucially, we realized we had no hot water for bathing! This realization came late because the hot water heater is on a timer so that it only draws power during lower demand times of day, when the cost of electricity is lower. When the timer tried to turn on the water heater, the Linky shut down the whole apartment, again.
The next morning I jumped on line and started doing research. It turns out that in France (oh, how many times have we written that line!) you have to notify your supplier of the amount of power you intend to use—not a total consumption for the month, but what is the maximum/peak demand you think you’ll use at any one time.
Carolyn insists on this comparison for the lay people: I’m not telling Starbuck I need 100 cups of coffee to get through the month. I’m telling Starbucks I think the most coffee I will need in any one day is 10 cups. If I exceed those ten cups, my body will shut down. She thinks this is a perfect analogy. Meh.
Total Energies has subscription rates in 3kVa (kilo-volt-amperes) increments. You can subscribe for 3kVa, 6kVa, 9kVa, 12kVa, etc. If you subscribe for more power, you pay a higher price per unit of energy. I like this model—it encourages efficiency in design, the purchase of efficient appliances, and being conscientious about how one uses electricity, and it makes high-demand customers pay a premium.
The utility company makes it easy to figure out what level of power you should subscribe to by providing examples with metrics.
Because our account information had changed, Total Energies had reset the account back to the minimum subscription of 3kVa. As you can see in the table above, that’s the power level recommended for a studio apartment without electric heat. The Linky was tripping constantly if we tried to use more than one appliance at a time or tried to cook anything more than a pot of coffee on the range. We couldn’t fix the problem on line, because Total Energies had never given Agnés an account number for us. We were lucky it wasn’t the middle of winter or we’d have been freezing!
I tried calling the utility to get things sorted out, but they didn’t have anyone who spoke English, and my French was nowhere near the level required for this conversation, and so they kept hanging up on me. Then I had the fantastic idea to use the company’s interface for deaf people! Doing so would allow me to type a chat and cut-and-paste dialog into Google Translate. Brilliant, right?!
They immediately figured out that I was not deaf and cut me off.
Readers may remember that one of the things Carolyn I listed as a “plus” for France as a retirement location is that they are a nation of rule followers. In this moment I was not considering this a positive quality. Once we had hot water again, I might decide they should leave the service for people who actually needed it, but it was Friday afternoon. The Total Energies office would be closed over the weekend.
Carolyn and I resolved to make the best of it. We ordered pizza and Indian from the local restaurants (both excellent) because we couldn’t cook, we ate outdoor lunches at the touristy restaurants, and at least we were able to make coffee at home. But personal cleanliness was a challenge. I took cold showers in the evenings—it was awful, and I couldn’t take it long enough to work up a good lather of shampoo. I tried to pretend I was in a favorite (freezing cold) childhood swimming hole in the rainforest in Puerto Rico. Carolyn grew up swimming in Texas—she didn’t do cold swimming holes, so she just didn’t bathe for three days.
On Sunday we went to bed (lying very far apart) dreaming of getting everything sorted out on Monday, of cooking our own food, using the dishwasher, and taking hot showers.
Those sweet dreams were dashed on the rocks of the generous French holiday schedule. Monday, May 8th is Victory Day, the anniversary of Germany’s surrender in World War II. It’s a public holiday in France. Of course it is. Total Energies would be closed along with almost every other business in the country. We’d have to endure 24 more hours of cold showers and carry-out.
I gave in and shaved with cold water on Monday morning. I remembered an account I had read of American soldiers in Bastogne having to shave in the dead of winter, freezing in their fox holes and using icy water in their helmets to rinse their razors. I did my best on this VE Day to focus on my good fortune and to remember all the sacrifices made by people I’d never know or be able to thank. But still, shaving with even slightly cold water is no fun.
Tuesday morning I went for a long walk, something I do when I’m restless and irritable. Carolyn staged a mutiny while I was out. She went online and created a new account with the energy company. I had not wanted to do this, sure we’d be making a duplicate account and that it would confuse everything and make the situation worse. After she submitted the request, the site told her she had to call the electric company to complete our application.
I was back in the apartment by now but decided to leave again, because I have the annoying habit of trying to mime the questions I want ask while she’s on the phone, totally distracting her and creating a situation that any reasonable person would consider grounds for justifiable matricide.
The woman at Total Energies spoke not one word of English, but she spoke slowly and was patient with Carolyn’s French. She found our new application with no problem, asked about our kitchen appliances, and quickly agreed we needed the same amount of daily electricity that the last owner had had—9kVa. She promised that our power would be back to normal by morning. Neither of us really believed it and we exchanged withering eye rolls below our greasy, unwashed manes of hair.
A few hours later the Linky turned off again and we groaned in unison and went to do another reset—but this time the power went back to normal! The mutiny had worked and Carolyn had done it! It was a big victory for her French and an even bigger one for her odor.
We celebrated with hot showers.
Jusqu’à la prochaine fois (until next time),
Carolyn & Roberto
Hooray for hot showers!
Well Played Mutiny !!!!