The French government issued a press release on 15 September setting out the main objectives for reform of its electricity market.
The French text sets out three principles:
- To preserve regulated electricity tariffs for households and small companies;
- to ensure funding for existing generation capacity and encourage new investment in accordance with the 'Grenelle de l'environnement' round table, and;
- to promote competition via regulations allowing all electricity suppliers in France to tap into EDF's "historic" nuclear power capacity at market conditions.
The reforms will have to be voted upon in the French parliament by July 2010.
The same day, EU commissioners Andris Piebalgs (energy) and Neelie Kroes (competition) welcomed the French developments.
The two commissioners said a law applying the French government's commitments would postively impact upon the Commission's ongoing antitrust investigations.
They particularly appreciated a commitment to scrap regulated tariffs for large and medium-sized companies after a limited transition period.
The main idea of the reform is "to establish by 2010 a transitional system of regulation," said Pierre Gadonneix, president of EDF, during a hearing before the French parliament's committee on economic affairs on 16 September.
"Thus, all EDF's competitors would purchase from EDF at market prices," he said.
But the price at which competitors will buy nuclear energy produced by EDF has not yet been determined.
"We must take into account the full cost in the long term," said Gadonneix, adding that the cost of electricity should also include "maintenance and investment costs for nuclear plants". The committee headed by Paul Champsaur estimated that these vary between €40 and €45 per megawatt hour. But according to French economic newspaper Les Echos, the government will propose a "significantly lower" price.
During his hearing, Gadonneix called for the establishment of a body outside EDF to assess the cost of nuclear power.
