The increase in the cost of electricity will be capped at 4% for French users in 2022. The Minister of the Economy, Bruno Le Maire, and his colleague Barbara Pompili, champion of ecology with Macron sauce, have promised it. Bruno Le Maire affirmed that without his determination to “protect” the purchasing power of the French, the increase would have been + 44.5% at the start of the year. Thank you and congratulations, Bruno, we had a narrow escape!
What a huckster, this Bruno! Let us thank the management of the EDF company for agreeing to be pampered by two ministers and a President who may no longer be in office in three months. It will, in reality, cost the taxpayer at least 16 billion euros, not counting the “energy” check of 100 € already paid (3.8 billion euros). It can do anything, “magic money”.
A little history. 90% of French electricity comes from nuclear and hydroelectric power stations, both sources of carbon-free energy independence. However, for at least ten years, our policies have only dithered, sculled, and “technocratic” the electricity market. Immobilism of Jacques Chirac and Nicolas Sarkozy, political buying of the votes of environmentalists by François Hollande, inconsistencies of Macron’s decisions with the closure of Fessenheim are just a few examples.
Nobody remembers it, but at the end of 2010, the French State, to conform to the Brussels Doxa of competition with a capital C, passed the so-called NOME law (new organization of the electricity market), which aims to create ex nihilo a competitive electricity market, until then a monopoly of EDF. Objective trumpeted: to lower the prices, therefore the bills, of the homes. But EDF produces the cheapest electricity in Europe thanks to nuclear power plants and hydroelectricity and already meets all the needs of the French, even to the point of exporting part of its electricity production. Quickly, there is a bug: the EDF monopoly produces cheaper than competitors who, in reality, do not produce any kilowatt-hours of electricity but are content to distribute it. For the high priests of fierce competition, this is heresy. Thus, EDF was forced to sell kilowatt-hours to its competitors… at the EDF production price, therefore decided by the State – more precisely by an authority, the CRE (Energy Regulation Commission). The price is €42 per megawatt-hour, unchanged since 2012.
To sum up, EDF sells electricity at a cost price to competitors who resell it to EDF customers in the name of “healthy competition”. In reality, this market serves no purpose except to conform to the Brussels Doxa of sacrosanct competition.
Therefore, it is a loss of revenue for EDF, which nevertheless has a lot to do to prepare for the future. Invest in renewable energy. Invest in the maintenance and extension of the existing nuclear fleet. Finance your debt. Increase its capital to cope with its stock market depreciation (-35% in one month) and the burden of 16 billion euros bequeathed by Bruno Le Maire and Barbara Pompili.
As EDF only sells part of its electricity at cost price to its competitors, the latter obtain the balance on the erratic energy market, indexed to oil and gas prices.
As a reminder, oil and gas prices have soared by +60% and +73%, respectively, over the last twelve months.
And all this inevitably affects your bills. Three months before the presidential election, it is out of the question to announce an increase in the price of electricity of around 44.5% to the French.
Finally, this winter, it is necessary to reopen coal-fired power stations, a major consumer of CO2 (carbon dioxide), CO2 which will, in addition, have to be compensated on the market for rights to pollute.
No clearing seems to want to present itself. So, see you after April 24, without Bruno or Barbara.
