In an electricity sector that is open to competition at European level, France has maintained or created major public intervention tools – in connection with the “New organisation of the electricity market” (NOME) law of 7 December 2010 – to meet several objectives: to allow competition between suppliers, to guarantee stable prices for consumers that reflect the competitiveness of existing nuclear plants, to ensure the financing of these plants and to have sufficient capacity to guarantee the balance between electricity supply and demand.
The report published today by the Court of Accounts answers three evaluative questions on the main public policy mechanisms for the organisation of the electricity markets. It points out that the combined implementation of these mechanisms over the last ten years no longer ensures that the original objectives are met. This observation, illustrated to the extreme in the recent context of soaring gas and electricity prices, calls for advantage to be taken of the forthcoming deadlines for the revision or obsolescence of existing mechanisms to clarify the objectives and revisit the tools for intervention in the electricity markets.
