The energy sector regulator has signaled “extremely high” electricity prices in France next winter and said on Tuesday it would question French market players to shed light on this atypical situation.
“The electricity forward prices for the winter of 2022-2023 for delivery in France are extremely high,” the Energy Regulatory Commission (CRE) points out in a report.
Prices have “almost doubled in a few weeks”: electricity for delivery in the fourth quarter of 2022 was worth more than 800 euros per MWh in recent days while it was still below 500 euros during the first half of June, an already very high price.
Prices no longer obey the usual logic
This rebound is explained in part by a double crisis in the markets: the fear of the interruption of Russian gas shipments to Europe since the invasion of Ukraine and the stoppages of nuclear reactors in France due to corrosion problems in particular.
But prices in France have risen more than in its neighbors – especially Germany – even though it benefits from better gas supplies, whose prices indirectly affect electricity prices.
CRE also points out that futures prices in France no longer obey the usual logic. “They reflect expectations of a severe shortage or a high risk premium in the French electricity market, and probably a combination of the two,” he observes.
To clarify what exactly awaits France next winter, the RTE network administrator is due to publish a new version of its forecasts for the electrical “winter pass” in the autumn.
Source: BFM TV
