Following a meeting with energy suppliers, Bruno Le Maire, the Minister of the Economy, assured Friday January 6 that very small businesses (TPE) in France will not pay “no more than 280 euros per megawatt hour on average” in 2023. Suppliers have thus “responded very clearly to the firm request expressed by the President of the Republic”he added.
This guaranteed rate, applicable from the January 2023 bill, will be accessible to companies with fewer than ten employees and declaring less than 2 million euros in annual turnover which have renewed their electricity supply contract in the second half of 2022. and which do not benefit from the regulated sales tariff because the power used exceeds a certain level. According to Bruno Le Maire, 600,000 of the 2.1 million very small businesses in France are affected.
Form
The minister said he sees there a “excellent news for all the bakers, all the craftsmen, all the butchers, all the lingerie companies, all the restaurateurs who had started to sign or had already signed contracts which might be for 300, 350, 400 euros”, and a source of“tremendous relief”.
The $280 price tag is steep compared to historical prices, but much lower than the highs seen in recent months. Contracts for delivery in a year were trading on Friday around 225 euros per megawatt hour. Between June and December 2022, they continuously exceeded 400 euros/MWh, with a peak above 1,100 euros/MWh at the end of August, once morest around 50 euros historically. The announced guaranteed tariff only concerns electricity supply contracts, those of gas being targeted by already existing aid mechanisms (regulated tariff, aid desk, etc.).
In practice, the companies concerned must complete a form accessible from their supplier’s website or on the impots.gouv.fr site, which they must complete and return to their seller to obtain the guaranteed rate. It’s here “path of simplicity”underlined Mr. Le Maire, because VSEs have “something else to do” than to renegotiate their contracts or lend themselves to “red tape”.
“Acquires are important”
Present with Bruno Le Maire at the press conference, the Minister for Energy Transition, Agnès Pannier-Runacher, was pleased to see the suppliers ” Play the game “ and allow this “acquis important”. She argued that the measure allowed the VSEs concerned to have the lowest electricity price for businesses on a European scale.
After a week of meetings, arrests and speeches, until a denunciation by Emmanuel Macron Thursday of the prices “excessive”, the government therefore forced the hand of electricity sellers. Among the energy companies present at the meeting on Friday included EDF, Engie and TotalEnergies. The latter had announced earlier in the day that he was ready to “tariff revisions”. The government had threatened, if suppliers did not cooperate, to resort to“weapon” of taxation.
At this stage, the extent of the commercial gesture granted by the suppliers or the effort of the State to compensate for this guaranteed price remains impossible to quantify. “We are continuing discussions on cost sharing” with suppliers, assured Bruno Le Maire.
