France is launching a televised electricity forecast as part of a national energy-saving plan that will be presented on Thursday, Le Parisien newspaper reported.
After the weather report and between other programmes, information about the load on the power grid would be broadcast using green, yellow and red symbols to show how much power is available.
The government hoped to reach around 80 per cent of the public.
Information on the expected load on the French grid was also available from national grid provider RTE which posted the data online.
A green symbol meant the nation’s electricity use was in balance, while yellow indicated some strain.
Red meant there might be supply interruptions and at that level, people would be asked to reduce their consumption between the hours of 8.00 a.m. and 12.00 p.m.
An example was by using their washing machines or ovens at another point during the day.
People were not being asked to stop watching television.
Paris is bracing for supply shortages as more than half the country’s 56 nuclear power stations were out of action for maintenance.
The country was heavily reliant on nuclear-generated electricity.
It was unclear whether the power plants would be operating again by winter, as the government has demanded.
Nuclear power issues had hit France at a bad time as sanctions against Russia over the war in Ukraine meant the availability of natural gas was already lower than usual.
France had put a coal-fired power plant in north-eastern Saint-Avold back into operation given the energy crisis.
