« I lower, I turn off, I shift », insisted the advertising spot launched by the government in October 2022, in the midst of the energy crisis. Two years later, however, the situation has changed. Because if French demand for electricity, which has fallen more than expected, does not rebound quickly, the bill risks being steep for individuals and businesses alike.
The reason: investments intended to maintain and develop electricity networks, destined to increase no matter what, will be financed by a smaller base. The effect is mechanical: the fewer megawatt hours (MWh) users consume, the higher the fixed charges levied on each of these MWh, via bills. In other words, everyone will have to pay more.
Electricity: from February, the French will pay more to finance the networks
21% more
This is the main message from the Court of Auditors, in a report published on Wednesday. At constant consumption, we should even expect, by 2030, an increase of around 21% in the tariff for using the public electricity network (Turpe)! Or around 10 euros per MWh, unheard of.
And for good reason: today set at 61 euros/MWh excluding VAT (around ¼ of a household’s final bill), this “toll” will have to finance colossal investments in the energy transition. These are estimated at nearly 200 billion euros between 2025 and 2040 by RTE and Enedis, the two network managers. The goal is to connect new wind and solar farms or even charging stations for electric cars which require, schematically, to pull ever more cables. But also improve their resistance to extreme climatic events, for example.
The evolution of consumption, this great unknown
Certainly, the expected increase in consumption, under the effect of the electrification of vehicles and heating among others, should neutralize ” the essential » of the increase, by dividing the bill over a larger number of users, qualifies the financial jurisdiction. While electricity currently represents 27% of final energy consumption, the French strategy currently under consultation targets 34% in 2030 and 54% in 2050.
Only here: there are “ uncertainties » on this trajectory. What “ does not make it possible to exclude significant price increases in the medium term for users “. In fact, the evolution of demand remains one of the great unknowns today. In 2023, this declined by 3.2%, to a level lower than the year 2020, marked by confinements. And hasn’t resumed since. The dropout is even around 7% compared to the reference period, going from 2014 to 2019.
“We think we have reached a plateau, but the horizon remains uncertain,” RTE recently conceded during a press briefing.
In France, the big leap backward in electricity consumption which falls to the level of the early 2000s
It must be said that contradictory signals are multiplying: while successive governments emphasize the urgency of weaning ourselves off fossil fuels, there are still plans to bring electricity taxes back to their pre-crisis level, i.e. a level higher than those on gas. Worse: former Prime Minister Michel Barnier intended to raise them even further, before backing down under the threat of censorship – ultimately inevitable. It is difficult, in this context, to encourage the French to move towards this energy vector, despite the environmental emergency.
Who will pay?
So, to avoid a vicious circle, the Court proposes that this burden be borne more by Enedis and RTE as well as their shareholder (mainly EDF, and therefore the State), rather than by consumers. The idea: revise dividend policies and remuneration mechanisms for network managers, considered too high. In fact, they would benefit a very protective regulatory framework and legal environment » which places them in “ a strongly regulated monopoly situation”, for which “remuneration is almost assured “, we can read.
« It is possible either to immediately involve users via the tariff, by increasing the rate of return on assets or by anticipating the coverage of investment expenses by TURPE, or to reduce the rate of distribution of dividends to shareholders », Write the magistrates of the Cambon palace.
Unsurprisingly, however, the main stakeholders dispute this diagnosis. In a letter sent to the Court of Auditors on December 4, the Chairman of the Enedis Board of Directors, Marianne Laigneau, states that the company “ exploits the network at its own risk”, in view of “climate hazards” and “social movements “. To date, the question remains: who will pay?
Bad weather: electricity networks on the front line
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