Should we expect an outbreak of electricity prices in 2026? This Tuesday, February 25, the consumer association UFC-Que Choisir denounced The market reform in France as of next year, believing that the mechanism chosen by the government in the 2025 finance law to replace the current system, will lead “to make the French pay their electricity at a high price”.
In question: the new method of calculating prices, “based on the high and unstable prices of wholesale markets, instead of the real cost of electricity production in France”. The Ministry of Economy and Finance refutes the association’s arguments and denounces a “biased” calculation.
Why was a reform voted for 2026?
In force for about 15 years, the current mechanism, called Arenh (regulated access to historic nuclear electricity), widely criticized by EDF, obliged the historic supplier for sale approximately a quarter of its nuclear electricity at the broken price of 42 euros per megawat hour (MWH) to manufacturers wholesale consumers of electricity but also to alternative suppliers. Ultimately, the consumer benefited from this “share” of Arenh.
To replace it, a new regulation mechanism has been provided and translated in article 4 of this draft budget. It follows from the agreement between EDF and the State announced in November 2023, which defined an electricity price around 70 euros per MWh on average over 15 years, which had been coldly welcomed by consumer and D representatives ‘industrialists.
Under this agreement, EDF can sell all its electricity on the markets. In return, beyond certain price thresholds, article 4 provides that a fraction of additional income garnered by EDF will be deducted and assigned to a redistribution mechanism for all consumers, individuals or industrial, customers or not of EDF.
For the Minister of Industry and Energy Marc Ferracci, this new mechanism “makes it possible to amortize the price increases for consumers, by imposing on EDF a redistribution of its margins when the prices are high”. “It was designed to take over from ARENH, which will go out on January 1, 2026, and learn from the energy crisis of 2022-2023, where many consumers had seen their electricity bill.” he said.
The association deplores, however, that in spite of the government’s commitment to redistribute to households part of EDF’s profits, which “will be very limited”. “Only a small fraction of household consumption will be concerned, and the taxation of EDF’s profits will remain insufficient to compensate for the pricing,” she said.
How much will the invoice of the French fall?
According to the study of the UFC-Que Choisir, this reform “negotiated on the sly between the government and EDF” would result in consumers by an increase in the invoice, “on average 19 % more, or until until 250 euros additional per year for an average home “if it applied this year. By way of illustration, a household at the regulated rate consuming 6,000 kWh of electricity per year would have had an annual invoice 17 % higher than that based on the prices practiced today. In total, this represents an additional cost of 233 euros.
How did the association come to this result? It justifies to base its evaluation over the year 2025 by the uncertainties on the parameters which will be taken into account to determine the level of the regulated electricity sales prices in 2026 and in particular the prices which will be found by the end of The year on the wholesale markets.
Why does Bercy reject this conclusion?
The Ministry of Economy and Finance considered that “the calculation thus carried out is biased” since the study published by the UFC-Que Choisir offers a calculation associating current data with a mechanism which will only come into force In 2026, without taking into account other parameters. According to Bercy, the simulations produced show that “the reversal to the consumer provided by the finance law for 2025 leads to a level of TRV on January 1, 2026 almost identical at the current level”. “This result indicates that the reversal planned works,” he concludes.