“Annual change in your natural gas subscription excluding tax as of 1er July 2024.” It’s typically the email header that doesn’t bode well. Serge O. received it at the end of May from EDF. This resident of the Nord department subscribed to an Avantage gaz contract with this supplier at the end of 2021 which at the time provided for a locked price per kWh consumed for 2 years. But the missive announces an increase in his subscription of €8.63 excluding tax per month from 1er July. On this date, it will increase from €20.53 to €29.16 per month. An increase of 42%.
This is not the only EDF customer to have alerted What to choose on this same 42% increase in their subscription to 1er July. At the end of April, it was Engie which warned its subscribers to its Passerelle offer, which took over from the offer at the regulated gas sales rate, of future increases. This time both on the subscription (the fixed part of the invoice) of 20.24%, and the price per kWh (the variable part which depends on your consumption) of 9.65%.
The two suppliers explain these increases by the increase in transmission rates decided in recent months by the Energy Regulatory Commission (CRE), the administrative authority responsible for ensuring the proper functioning of the energy market. To transport gas from the production site to the distribution network, store it then transport it to their end customers, suppliers use infrastructures which are not theirs but belong to managers (mainly GRDF) that they pay for this. These are the transmission rates, which represent approximately 25% of the amount of a particular consumer’s natural gas bill.
Fewer gas subscribers but network costs that do not change
The CRE decided to increase them for the period 2024-2027 based on two observations. First, gas consumption is falling in France. By 6% each time in 2022 and 2023. This is explained by increased efforts at sobriety, but also by the fact that more and more French people are turning away from gas for other energies for heating.
However, the costs of managing gas transport and storage infrastructure are not decreasing. On the contrary, CRE expects it, which points out both the need to maintain a high level of network security in the current tense geopolitical context, but also to invest in new gas pipelines to connect production sites to the network. of biomethane, often located on agricultural farms, expected to grow.
Thus, the new tariffs for third-party access to transport networks (ATRT) and third-party access to storage (ATS) came into force in April. However, the impact on individual consumers’ bills is limited. “The transport and storage portion for an average consumer heating with gas will increase by around €1.25 per MWh excluding tax, i.e. an annual bill increase of around €17 excluding tax in 2024,” calculated the CRE in its deliberation of December 20.
To these first two transmission rates is added a third: third party access to the distribution network (ATRD). The increase will be felt much more here. The CRE calculates an increase of around €7.30 including tax per month (+5.5%) on the total bill for a customer heating with gas, and of €2.20 including tax per month (+10. 4%) on that of a customer using only gas for hot water production and cooking.
Increases passed on to the bill in the vast majority of cases
It is all of these increases (ATRT, ATS, ATRD) that Engie and EDF will pass on to their customers from July. The only ones to do it? One might believe it then that the messages addressed to What to choose come from customers of these two suppliers. It is not so. The energy mediator also invites us not to have any illusions: “For the vast majority of contracts, the increase in these delivery rates will be reflected in your invoices”, he warned this Wednesday.
Because most gas supply offers are indexed, both on the subscription and on the price per kWh, on the benchmark price published each month by the CRE. However, this indicator integrates the new transmission rates, so that by following it, these indexed offers automatically pass them on without subscribers being informed. This is also the case with EDF for one of its offers, Optimized Gas Advantage.
On the other hand, Engie’s Passerelle gas offer is more atypical. This is an indefinite-term contract whose price per kWh is indexed to the market reference index that the CRE updates every month. “But, as specified in the general conditions of sale, the contract provides for the possibility of revising, at most twice a year, the price of the kWh like that of the subscription, to be able to take into account possible changes in our costs not linked to market fluctuations, explains Céline Regnault, director of customer experience at Engie. Typically therefore an increase in transport rates. »
Avantage gaz from EDF is a more classic offer which offers a fixed price per kWh over a fixed period (2 years in the offer currently marketed). “On the other hand, the contract provides for an increase or decrease in the price excluding tax of the subscription at most once a year, precisely depending on the evolution of transport rates”, specifies the EDF press service.
The importance of carefully studying the offer descriptions
This is unfortunately the case for the majority of fixed price contracts. Only the price of the gas molecule is in reality, in the sense that it is guaranteed to be impervious to changes in market prices. But these contracts generally provide for the possibility of reviewing the subscription or kWh prices once a year, in order to pass on possible increases in transmission rates. Hence the importance, when choosing your supplier, to carefully read the descriptive sheets of their offers, in particular the price revision conditions.
Another tip: put these offers in competition, via the free comparator of What to choose. In the coming weeks, when suppliers update their price scales, it will then be possible to see precisely which ones are the most advantageous compared to the CRE benchmark and which are less so. It is not impossible that certain suppliers are cutting back on their margins rather than passing on these increases in transport rates to their customers. Nothing prohibits it in any case.
