Will the electricity bill vary for households in a few weeks? Up or down? It depends on several factors.
It is a subject subject to a salvo of various announcements from which it is difficult to disentangle: what will be the evolution of the electricity price in the coming weeks? The main projections are optimistic for household finances since promises were made that the bill would soon decrease. However, this would not concern everyone: “80% of French people” according to Maud Bregeon, government spokesperson. What about the remaining 20%? Will they see the bill increase?
Several elements must be taken into account regarding the future amounts to be paid to Engie, EDF or even TotalEnergies: the cost of electricity alone and the cost of additional taxes, but also the type of contract to which the person has subscribed. That’s the whole difficulty. The different elements mentioned above do not evolve in the same way. One will decrease, the other will increase… And again, the evolution will not be the same on all contracts.
Overall, the emerging trend is as follows: first, in November 2024, a slight increase will be applied to some consumers. Then, in February 2025, the bill should drop by around 10% for the vast majority of French people. This is due to the reduction in the cost of electricity production. However, at the same time, the government plans to sharply increase a tax. Consequence: the reduction will be there, but it will be less than if taxation were maintained at its current level.
19:49 – How much will this tax increase cost me?
For an apartment of 60m2 (consumption of 4800KwH/year), the annual amount of the TICFE will increase from 120 to 230 euros. For a house of 100m² (10,000KwH/year), this will increase from 250 to 480 euros annually. These are the average consumption levels established by Engie depending on the types of housing. However, most households should not feel the effects of this tax increase. In fact, the government says that the pure cost of electricity will decrease so much at the start of the year that, despite the increase in the tax, the bill will still fall.
19:06 – A tax on electricity about to double
The electricity bill is broken down into several parts: the pure price of electricity, costs linked to the electricity network and its maintenance, as well as a tax collected by the State. This, the TICFE (or CSPE, its other name), no longer represented almost nothing on the total to be paid: it had been lowered to 1€/MwH to compensate for the increase in the cost of production and transmission of electricity. electricity. The latter having now decreased, the State wants to fill its coffers again. Raised to €21/MwH, it was to rise to €32/MwH on February 1, its level before the start of the war in Ukraine. But Michel Barnier wants to go much further. According to Les Echosthe Prime Minister wants to increase the cost of this tax to 40 or 42€/MwH in 2025 in order to obtain additional revenue for the state budget. This new amount could come into force on February 1.
18:08 – Why do some prices change on November 1st and others on February 1st?
In fact, it depends on the contracts. If it is a contract with a market offer, prices and taxes can change at any time, depending on the market.
On the other hand, for contracts with a regulated electricity sales rate, the revision of the cost of electricity is only done twice a year: on February 1 and August 1 of each year. This year, these French people could also have seen their bill increase on November 1st due to the increase in the TURPE tax (read below).
However, in order to avoid too many variations, the government has decided to postpone this increase until February 1 so that it is painless for households: as the cost of electricity production could drop significantly at that time, this slight increase (4.81%) will be absorbed. The bill will still go down. The shift was therefore only decided for “comfort”.
17:47 – Who will benefit from the reduction in the cost of electricity from February?
Concretely, it is customers subscribed to the regulated electricity sales tariff who will benefit from this reduction, whether they are on the blue tariff, on the Tempo offer or even on the peak/off-peak hours system. Furthermore, French people subscribing to a market offer indexed to the regulated rate are also concerned. In total, just over 30 million people are affected.
17:31 – I read that the price of electricity will fall at the beginning of 2025: what about it?
It’s true. In February, the price of electricity will fall for most French people. This will be due to the drop in the cost of energy production: electricity will be cheaper and this will be reflected in the bill. Around 10% drop is expected for most French people, but not all. A little more patience…
16:57 – How much more will this cost the affected households?
To estimate the amount of the future bill, simply take the last payment received and read the line below “Total electricity including tax”. Entitled “including XX euros excluding tax paid to your distributor for the delivery of electricity” (on Engie invoices in particular), it is the one which will increase by 4.81%. If my calculation mechanics between VAT and VAT are a little complex, overall, the amount to be paid to the supplier will increase by around 1%. For example, on a bill of 180 euros which includes 27 euros of delivery, the total will only increase by approximately… 1 euro.
16:42 – Who will pay more from November 1?
Around 10 million French people are affected by this increase. These are those who have a contract with market offers or a “fixed price”. On this last type of contract, only the price of electricity is fixed: not that of taxes and additional tariffs. All others who have a contract at the regulated sales rate will not be affected on November 1st.
4:35 p.m. – An increase in the price of electricity on November 1 for some French people
From November 1, the price of electricity will increase. Or, more precisely, that of the maintenance costs of the electricity network. These costs are in fact distributed across the various lines of the invoice: subscription, consumption and transport tariff contribution. These are sums that suppliers must pay to managers (that is to say, mainly, Engie and others to Enedis). However, suppliers do not take this money out of their pockets: they apply this due to customer invoices. This is called the Tariff for use of the public electricity network (TURPE). Next month, its amount will increase by 4.81%. Suppliers could have not reflected this increase on the invoice. However, Engie announces to Linternaute that “unfortunately we have no other choice than to pass on the increase in this TURPE to our customers given the regulatory and financial constraints.” TotalEnergies did not respond to us. But not all French people will be affected.