2024-10-12 10:11:00
Lhe rare parliamentarians who are interested in energy discovered the measure during the night from Thursday to Friday, and fell out of their chairs. On page 37 of the thick finance bill (PLF) for 2025, an article appears that no one expected to find, establishing the “establishment of sharing with consumers of historic nuclear revenues” .
What follows are thirteen pages of technical jargon that is almost illegible for the uninitiated, succinctly summarized in a meager “explanatory statement”: in short, the government has chosen to include in the PLF the mechanism aimed at replacing the Arenh (Access regulated to historic nuclear electricity), this system put in place in 2011 and which forces EDF to sell 100 TWh of the historic nuclear fleet (i.e. around a third of its production) at the discounted price of 42 euros/MWh, outside the prices of the market.
ALSO READ Electricity prices: EDF’s gigantic challenge Particularly criticized, this system was instituted following the liberalization of the electricity market, and for years allowed EDF’s competitors, the famous “alternative operators”, to resell to their customers electricity that they did not produce, bought at a knockdown price. It also weighed down EDF’s accounts, but proved insufficient when electricity prices, partly indexed to those of gas, exploded at the outbreak of the war in Ukraine.
A new complex tax
As Arenh comes to an end at the end of 2025, it was necessary to replace the mechanism, while trying to correct its perverse effects. At the end of a Homeric standoff last November, EDF and the services of Bruno Le Maire reached an agreement based on a dual system. On the one hand, EDF is free to negotiate long-term contracts with large electricity consumers, over five or ten years (or even more), allowing it to detach itself from gas prices and guarantee price stability.
For all other consumers, a fixed tariff is determined. If market prices soar, the State will draw on the surpluses collected by EDF, up to 50% up to a certain threshold, and 90% beyond. For months, the State and EDF fought over these thresholds. It is impossible for the electrician to maintain the price of 42 euros/MWh in force today: it barely corresponds to the production cost of the historic park. However, to extend the existing fleet and build the six new planned EPR2s, EDF will have to invest 25 billion euros each year!
In November 2023, EDF and the State therefore reached a compromise: the fixed price would be 70 euros/MWh for all nuclear production. When prices exceed 78-80 euros per MWh, the State will take 50% of EDF’s profits, and 90% when they exceed 110 euros per MWh. Every three years, these thresholds will be examined by the Energy Regulatory Commission (CRE), to reflect the reality of costs as closely as possible.
ALSO READ Budget: electricity is taxed more than gas, and it will get worseIt is therefore this mechanism, resulting from the tough negotiation between Bercy and the operator, that the government slipped into the budget. “The new system must be included in the PLF, since it creates a new tax,” explains a government source. Doing this a year before the 2026 deadline helps give visibility to the markets. »
Gray areas
Or even… Because the text leaves many questions unanswered. The first, and most important: what will be the tax trigger thresholds ultimately retained? Nowhere do the amounts negotiated by EDF a year ago appear. According to our information, the operator has obtained oral assurance that they will stick to the amounts claimed. EDF has started discussions with the CRE, which must soon publish an analysis of the complete costs of nuclear electricity according to the new formula (that is to say including future costs, which has never been done).
Second question, which follows from the first: these thresholds having to be revised every three years, what guarantee will the operator have that a sufficient price will be maintained to renew its fleet? “The CRE has never detailed its methodology nor published its calculations! Before asking MPs to vote, it would have been necessary to agree on this methodological basis. We are opening the door to arbitrariness, and for years to come,” says someone familiar with the matter.
The government assures that it has provided margins for politics: whatever the fixed cost of nuclear production decided by the CRE, the tax thresholds can be triggered in a range exceeding them by 5 to 25 euros/MWh for the portion levied. at 50%, and from 35 to 55 euros/MWh for that imposed at 90%. For example, if the CRE decides, in three years, to set the average price per MWh at 65 euros, but the market prices are occasionally higher, the State may choose to take EDF’s profits, i.e. beyond 70 euros, or beyond 90 euros. “That leaves a certain amount of latitude to take into account EDF’s investment needs,” explains a well-informed source.
An “opaque” agreement between the State and EDF
A sham “flexibility” for many deputies, who are alarmed that the government is returning to its past mistakes. “The government is increasing taxes on electricity with Ticfe, it is pumping dividends from EDF, and it is creating a tool to recover EDF cash intended for investments,” fears LR MP Raphaël Schellenberger. Who tells us that he won’t use it to finance the social system? We must guarantee that EDF will have the means to finance its recovery plan. »
The RN, opposed to the principle and in favor of leaving the European electricity market, immediately tabled a deletion amendment. “We cannot decide the fate of nuclear power and our pricing model for the next fifteen years in a few days of parliamentary debate. It’s not serious, we need a dedicated text,” storms the “Mr. Energy” of the RN and deputy for the Somme, Jean-Philippe Tanguy.
ALSO READ Budget 2025: will your electricity bill increase? The day after the publication of the text, the industry is also worried. “Clearly, EDF will not be able to take advantage of its revenues to finance new nuclear power. The State will take everything, and the operator will have to beg for aid, warns an industrialist. It’s unhealthy, and as it will be state aid, it will complicate things in Brussels…”
Battle in sight
Other parliamentarians, who had pleaded, following a committee of inquiry in the Senate, for a different mechanism, are alarmed by the possible inflationary effect of the measure. Elements of language disseminated by Matignon to his ministers, to whom The Point had access, confirm: “This measure may lead to an increase in electricity prices for the consumer,” states a note sent to Bercy.
Among them, companies, which last year judged the system too favorable to EDF, and are worried about the complexity of a system based on redistribution after the fact in the event of overheating of prices, starting from a price of sale of EDF impossible to know in advance. The Liaison Committee of Electricity Consumer Companies (Cleee) estimated in July that the mechanism “provides no visibility to companies and seriously compromises the country’s prospects for reindustrialization”.
Parliamentarians will only have a handful of weeks to debate it and decide on the future.
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