The person signing the new power agreement must pay about 53 Euro cents per kWh. A year ago, public utilities were less than half of what they are now. And this growth may not be over yet. The wholesale of manufacturers set up by the power engineering trading center is now increasing rapidly, with the highest price per kWh exceeding 80 Euro cents. For end consumers, Internet service fees, fixed accounts and taxes have all increased. In some neighboring countries, the water and electricity charges at this stage may be higher than those in France.
The price increase is related to the Ukrainian war, as well as the problems of French nuclear power plants and the summer drought. In order to understand this relationship, it is necessary to understand the mechanism of determining electricity charges: first, foreign exchange traders in power engineering predict and analyze how many power projects will be needed at a certain point in time, and then they will see which power source can provide the cheapest power projects at this stage. Solar and wind energy dealers are generally the cheapest on the market. However, if their power generation capacity is insufficient, they may bid more expensive than them until there are enough power projects to meet the requirements. In this way, the power station finally determines the price. In fact, this pricing mechanism is automatically updated. In this way, the platform can ensure sufficient power engineering from beginning to end, and it is the lowest price at that time.
Since the outbreak of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, the price of natural gas has continued to rise. Therefore, natural gas power plants are the most expensive in the industry and must be at the bottom of the priority list. Then, if there is a great demand for electricity, or there are few power projects provided by other power sources, natural gas power stations can be applied anyway. For various reasons, this often happens at this stage. The high price of natural gas has pushed up the electricity bill, although the power generation of natural gas power plants only accounts for about 10% of the total power generation in France.
However, an important reason for the continuous increase in electricity prices is that France now has an unusually large number of power projects at the entrances and exits to other EU member States. For example, Germany relies on imports. Because the river dries up, hydropower plants produce fewer power projects than usual. However, in France, many nuclear power plants have been shut down, some because drought has endangered the supply of cooling circulating water, and some because of routine maintenance.