Freshly returned from COP28 in Dubai, the Minister of Energy Transition Agnès Pannier-Runacher notably raised the issue of electricity bills on the set of the RTL-Le Figaro-M6-Paris Première Grand Jury. “We are done with the increases we have seen over the last two years,” she said. “We are regaining control over the price of electricity with increases which are intended to follow changes in our electricity production costs, that of nuclear power and our entire network, a cost disconnected from fossil fuels. “, she clarified. “We are getting out of this absurd system where because the price of gas increased on the markets, we saw our electricity bill increase without limit.”
This access of the French to “real nuclear prices” obtained after negotiations at European level and with EDF should make it possible to lead “to increases which are not intended to be in two figures, but to follow the evolution of the cost of our electricity production system, that is to say as close as possible to inflation. Remember that the next increase in electricity prices will take place next February and that EDF CEO Luc Rémont indicated that this increase would not exceed 10%, or nearly 45% in two years.
As for the tariff shield, it should disappear “during 2024” according to the minister because electricity is falling in European markets and should soon reach the levels guaranteed by the shield. “Prices have been divided by three compared to the astronomical levels which were reached in 2022,” underlined the minister. The second annual increase in electricity takes place in August, “it is based on the reality of network costs and only increases by a few euros per megawatt hour”.
The minister also assured that France “will be one of the first countries to get out of coal”. Stressing that even before the end of oil, the priority in the fight against global warming must be the end of coal, she assured that measures would be taken to reconvert the last coal-fired power stations and retrain their employees in other activities. linked to energy. France only has two left (Cordemais in Loire-Atlantique and Saint-Avold in Moselle), which represent “only 0.6% of our energy mix”.