Tempo colour today and tomorrow

How to read the Tempo colour

A colour applies to one Tempo day, from 06:00 to 06:00 the following morning. It sets two prices: peak hours from 06:00 to 22:00 and off-peak hours from 22:00 to 06:00. Those hours are the same everywhere in mainland France, because they are written into the tariff itself rather than set meter by meter by the local network operator, as the off-peak hours of the standard HP/HC option are.

RTE picks the colour the day before. Its algorithm, described in a method note, compares the next day’s forecast net demand, meaning national consumption minus wind and solar output, with two thresholds that fall as the season goes on and as the stock of days left shrinks. A cold, still weekday turns red; a mild one stays blue. The colour is published at 10:30 on RTE’s Tempo calendar, which adds that a non-binding indication may appear between 08:00 and 10:30.

You will also see it on the Linky meter display, in your supplier’s app or in its emails. This page reads it straight from RTE and rebuilds several times a day: at the top of the screen, the left card is the current day and the right card is tomorrow. Before 10:30, tomorrow’s card simply says the colour is not out yet.

A season’s quotas: 22 red, 43 white

The Tempo season starts on 1 September and ends on 31 August. It contains 22 red days and 43 white days; every other day is blue, 300 in a 365-day year. The placement rules, set by the energy regulator’s 2014 deliberation, are simple: a red day falls between 1 November and 31 March, Monday to Friday, never on a public holiday and never more than 5 days running; a white day can fall any day of the year except Sunday.

The columns hold together: published plus left always equals the quota, and the three quotas add up to the length of the season. It sounds obvious, yet some calendars online show a count of blue days gone that does not match their own counter. Here a mismatch stops the update instead of going live. The day-by-day view and the earliest date a red day can still fall are on the Tempo days left page.

Only one season broke the quotas: in 2019-2020 the regulator had red days swapped for white ones from 19 March 2020, during lockdown, and the season closed on 18 red and 47 white days. The season history lists the first and last red day of every winter since 2014.

What a day of each colour costs

The Tempo price per kilowatt-hour depends on the colour and the hour, not on the meter power: only the standing charge changes with the kVA. Here is the grid including tax that applies from 1 August 2026, as published by EDF for the regulated Tarif Bleu on the regulator’s proposal, which the Government accepted: an average rise of 2.5% on 1 August 2026, for some 20 million households on the regulated tariff.

The same winter day therefore costs €6 if it is blue and €22 if it is red. That is the whole Tempo bargain: blue and white days are cheaper than the Base rate of €0.2001 at 6 kVA, but twenty-two days weigh heavily if you change nothing. Try it on one day of your own use:

Your day at the price of each colour

Use over one day

kWh

Share at night (22:00-06:00)

%

A red day costs you

€22

A white day	€7
A blue day	€6
The same day on Base (6 kVA)	€8

kWh prices incl. tax from 1 August 2026, standing charge excluded.

Compare the three options over a year →

Why our figures start from national demand measured by RTE

Every online Tempo calculator runs into the same question: how much of your use falls on red days? Last year’s bill tells you if you were already on Tempo. Otherwise most tools assume a split in proportion to the number of days, which amounts to saying that a radiator uses as much in August as in January. It does not, and heating is exactly what makes red days expensive.

So we combined two public RTE datasets: the colour of every day since 2014 and national electricity demand day by day (éCO2mix). Taking the summer baseline away from each day leaves the part that depends on the cold, which is heating. Over the 12 completed seasons, red days carried on average 19.4 % of it, white days 29.4 % and blue days 51.2 %, while red days are only 6.0 % of the calendar. Put differently, a heating kWh is three times more likely to land on a red day than a fridge kWh.

The comparison tool applies that split to the heating part of your use only, and the calendar split to the rest. To isolate your heating you only need one summer month’s consumption: twelve times that month gives your baseline, the remainder is heating. No other tool divides consumption this way with the grid’s own measurements, and it avoids overstating Tempo for a heated house or understating it for a flat.

Base, Off-peak or Tempo: three typical households

The comparison engine applied to three common households, with 30 to 35% of use off-peak and no special effort on red days:

Without electric heating the cheapest option is Tempo: red days only weigh their share of the calendar. Once heating counts, red days are costly if nothing changes: for the heat-pump house Off-peak comes out ahead, and likewise for the radiator house (Off-peak). It all comes down to effort: shifting half of red-day peak use brings Tempo to €1,704 for the heat pump, below both other options and €2,933 for the radiators, ahead there too. The detailed comparison shows the effect of each setting, and the guide when Tempo pays off gives the point at which it stops paying.

The new off-peak hours leave Tempo’s timetable alone

Since November 2025 Enedis, the distribution network operator, has been moving part of the standard option’s off-peak hours to the afternoon, between 11:00 and 17:00, under rules set by the regulator. Eight off-peak hours a day remain guaranteed, at least five of them consecutive at night. The reform concerns the hours Enedis sets meter by meter. Tempo’s 22:00 to 06:00 window is part of the tariff itself and does not move. The new off-peak hours page sets out the timetable phase by phase and works out what the change costs if your appliances stay on the old schedule.

No phone number, no call-back

The French electricity market is dominated by comparison sites paid to put you in touch with a supplier: the colour of the day is the bait, and a “call me back” button is never far away. Here the result appears straight away, nobody asks for your name, number or email address, and no supplier pays us. Prices come from the regulator’s published texts and the official grid, the colour from RTE, and every figure on the page is recalculated from them.

Living with a Tempo season

1. Schedule the water heater and car charging between 22:00 and 06:00; a water heater wired to the meter’s off-peak contact already does this.
2. Sign up to your supplier’s alerts or check this page around 11:00: the evening before a red day leaves time to plan.
3. On a red day, lower the heating by one or two degrees between 06:00 and 22:00 and bring it back at 22:00; a well-insulated house holds its warmth for hours.
4. Keep the washing machine, dishwasher and oven for evenings and blue days; Saturday can be white, Sunday never.
5. Check your power: Tempo only exists from 6 kVA, and the meter power sets your standing charge.

The site’s other calculations

• Tomorrow’s Tempo colour: what the day will cost on your consumption.
• Tempo prices 2026: a year’s bill from your kWh by colour.
• Price per kWh on the Tarif Bleu: the all-in average price of each option.
• What to do on a red day and white days.
• Charging an electric car on Tempo and electric heating on Tempo.