L’executive assumes its intervention with EDF, regardless of the criticisms formulated by the electricity supplier. According to the Ministry of Industry, Thursday January 20, without State intervention, in order to force the energy company to supply electricity at lower rates, no less than 150 French companies could have shut down the door in the face of soaring prices. And no less than 45,000 jobs would have been threatened. A defense operation which comes as EDF recently indicated that government decisions would lead to a shortfall of eight billion euros.
“For industrial electricity consumers, the stake was existential, without government intervention, 150 electro-intensive companies could have closed”, thus directly threatening some “45,000 jobs”, not counting all those of customer companies downstream of chain, said an adviser to the office of the Minister Delegate for Industry, during a briefing with the press. Agnès Pannier-Runacher must go on Friday to the site of Aluminum Dunkerque, the largest industrial site in France that consumes electricity, which uses the equivalent of the consumption of a city of 850,000 households, to discuss these measures.
Growl at EDF
Faced with the historic surge in gas and electricity prices in Europe in 2021, Prime Minister Jean Castex announced in September a tariff shield to limit the increase in regulated electricity tariffs to 4% in 2022. that the mechanical increase would have come close to +45% on February 1, according to the regulator, on the basis of market prices.
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To achieve this, the government announced on January 14 an increase of 20 terawatt hours (TWh) in the volume of nuclear electricity sold at a reduced price by EDF this year for the benefit of industrialists and individuals, a mechanism called Arenh (for “regulated access to historical nuclear electricity”). This triggered the grumbling of EDF, management and unions included. Because, as we recall Le Figarothis requested volume, EDF no longer has it because it sold, in advance, all of its 2022 production. It will therefore have to buy back these 20 terawatt hours on the markets at around 200 euros, to resell them to its competitors at a much lower price.
An inflated bill, according to the executive
But the grumbling at EDF is starting to seriously irritate the executive, according to the daily. The government estimates that the invoice of eight billion euros advanced by the electrician is inflated, and that it would turn in reality around three billion. A source reports to Figaro that “this is not a sale at a loss. These 20 terawatt hours have already been sold and part of it at very high prices, no later than the end of December 2021. Within the government, it is explained that “the 8 billion put forward by EDF is without increasing the volume of the Arenh and letting consumer and business tariffs explode”.
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The industrial sites most threatened by the economic situation were those that consumed a lot of electricity, such as aluminum, ferro-alloy and PVC plastic factories “which are common materials sold to other automobile or aeronautics in particular, which could also have suffered a cascading domino effect, ”said the adviser from Bercy.
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While the Arenh system, authorized by the European Commission until 2025, must in any case be extinguished, an expert mission has been entrusted by the Minister to Philippe Darmayan, the former boss of the steelmaker ArcelorMittal France, but also former boss of UIMM and France Industrie, the firm said. “He will reflect on the establishment of long-term contracts” for industrialists wishing to supply themselves with electricity, the same source indicates. His mission is scheduled for 6 months, with a progress report at the end of March, according to an industrial source.