Is Tempo worth it for you? Working out the threshold
Tempo neither always wins nor always loses: every household has a threshold beyond which it costs more.
Tempo pays off as long as what you save on its 343 blue and white days exceeds what you lose on its 22 red days. The saving comes from prices below Base and Off-peak for most of the year; the loss comes from red peak hours, billed at €0.7295 on the regulated tariff of 1 August 2026. Three levers shift the balance: the share of your consumption that goes on heating, since heating concentrates on red days; the share you use at night; and the effort you make on red days. For an 8,000 kWh house on 9 kVA with 35% of use at night, our engine finds that Tempo with no effort at all stays ahead as long as heating does not exceed 26 % of consumption; shifting half of red-day peak use lifts the threshold to 86 %. The mini-calculator runs the same calculation for your own household.
How far Tempo pays with no effort
Tempo wins while heating stays below
26 %
| Tempo, no heating | €1,680 |
| Off-peak, same use | €1,797 |
| Tempo’s lead with no heating | €118 |
Heating share of consumption, nothing shifted on red days. Tariff of 1 August 2026.
Checked by Radif Partners · Editorial policy · Method and sources
The principle of the balance
Tempo is not dearer “on average”: it is cheaper most of the time and much dearer on a few days. A blue peak kWh costs €0.1654, against €0.2142 at peak on the Off-peak option and €0.1985 on Base above 6 kVA. A red peak kWh costs €0.7295. The standing charge is about the same: €236 a year on Tempo and €239 on Off-peak at 9 kVA, according to the grid of 1 August 2026. The question therefore boils down to a balance between many small savings and a few large losses.
What tips the balance is the share of your consumption that falls at peak time on a red day. It depends above all on heating, since red days are the coldest. Our calculations estimate it from national demand measured by RTE in éCO2mix: a household’s heating roughly follows the country’s cold-weather curve.
The threshold for some typical households
For each profile, the table gives the highest heating share of annual consumption at which Tempo remains the cheapest option, depending on the effort made on red days.
| Household | Night share | No effort | A quarter shifted | Half shifted |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4,000 kWh, 6 kVA | 30 % | 24 % | 45 % | 83 % |
| 8,000 kWh, 9 kVA | 35 % | 26 % | 48 % | 86 % |
| 8,000 kWh, 9 kVA | 50 % | 36 % | 59 % | always |
| 14,000 kWh, 12 kVA | 35 % | 26 % | 47 % | 86 % |
| 14,000 kWh, 12 kVA | 50 % | 36 % | 59 % | 99 % |
Three lessons stand out. First, without electric heating Tempo almost always pays: red days then only weigh their share of the calendar. Second, night-time use clearly raises the threshold. Third, red-day effort is the strongest lever: shifting half of red peak use is often worth more than everything else together.
How to measure your own heating share
Take your annual consumption, then that of one summer month with no heating or air conditioning. Twelve times the summer month gives your annual baseline: fridge, cooking, hot water, lighting, appliances. The rest is heating. With 8,000 kWh a year and 350 kWh in August, heating makes up 48 % of consumption. That is the method the comparison tool applies. If a heat pump heats your hot water or you go away in summer, use June or September instead.
When to leave Tempo, when to stay
A household already on Tempo has better than an estimate: its bills list the kWh used at peak and off-peak for each colour. Enter them on the Tempo prices page: it recalculates the year and compares it with Base and Off-peak on the same kWh. If the gap goes the wrong way two winters running and you cannot cut heating on red days, another option will suit you better.
Conversely, a household that finds itself just above the threshold can often get back under it with little: water heater at night, washing and drying put off, one degree less on red days. The guide on what to do on a red day goes through those habits, and the one on electric heating shows, winter by winter, how much red days weigh.
What this calculation leaves out
The current grid stems from the regulator’s July 2026 deliberation; the next movement is expected on 1 February 2027. It may shift the threshold: the calculation will be redone as soon as the new grid is published. The calculation also assumes an average winter; a very cold winter makes red days heavier, a mild one lighter.
Each lever, in figures
For the 8,000 kWh house on 9 kVA with 45% heating, here is Tempo’s annual cost when one lever is pulled at a time, against Off-peak on the same consumption:
| Setting | Tempo | Off-peak | Gap |
|---|---|---|---|
| Starting point: 35% at night, no effort | €1,876 | €1,797 | +€79 |
| 50% of use at night | €1,760 | €1,731 | +€29 |
| A quarter of red peak use shifted | €1,787 | €1,797 | −€10 |
| Half of red peak use shifted | €1,698 | €1,797 | −€99 |
The last row sums up what is at stake: for the same consumption, red-day peak hours decide. A household ready to halve them can keep Tempo even with substantial heating; a household that can shift nothing is better off staying below the threshold in the previous table.
Why the calculation starts from an average winter
The share of heating falling on red days varies from season to season, by several points depending on when the cold spells come. The threshold here rests on the average of 12 seasons, which smooths out exceptional winters. That is the right basis for a decision meant to last several years. To judge a particular winter, the season history gives the dates and number of red days of each one.
Remember too that the threshold is a border, not a cliff: a few points above it, Tempo costs barely more than Off-peak, and the gap is made up by a mild winter or a few habits. It is far above the threshold, with heavy heating and no way to turn it down, that Tempo becomes a poor choice.
A worked example
Take a household using 10,000 kWh a year and 400 kWh in July. Its annual baseline is twelve times July, 4,800 kWh, and heating is the rest, 52 % of consumption. On 9 kVA, with 35% of use at night and no particular effort, it compares with the table above: if its heating share is above the threshold on the matching row, Off-peak costs it less; otherwise Tempo wins. The mini-calculator at the top of the page gives the exact threshold for its consumption and power.
The same household can then ask what it is willing to change. Shifting a quarter of red peak use mostly means scheduling the water heater, moving the appliances and turning the heating down a little: habits many households already have without thinking. The comparison tool shows the effect of that setting on the year’s bill at once.
Newcomers to France often inherit the previous occupant’s contract and option when they move in. Moving home is a natural moment to run this check before the first winter rather than after the first red-day bill.
Finally, the threshold is a tool for the decision, not a verdict. A household slightly above it may still prefer Tempo for its cheap nights and its blue weekends, accepting a few dearer days; another slightly below it may prefer the simplicity of a single price. The figures on this page say what each choice costs, so that the choice is made knowingly rather than on the strength of a sales call.