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The market may allow a "folk" to go bankrupt, but will not allow companies to go bankrupt. Cue re-nationalization of EDF the moment things hint at becoming tigh

The market may allow a "folk" to go bankrupt, but will not allow companies to go bankrupt. Cue re-nationalization of EDF the moment things hint at becoming tight for EDF. I'm quite sure the EC will eventually "force" France to re-privatize EDF again, but only as soon as there's profits to be made...

lazide 4y ago
That’s because these aren’t real markets, they’re barely disguised monopolies with captured regulators putting on a show. Which is basically gov’t run power, albeit with less accountability since you can’t figure out who to vote out. Pretty convenient for those running it though!
makomk 4y ago
The reason things were becoming tight for EDF in the first place was mainly that the French government made them sell electricity at below-market prices for political reasons though.
- cool_dude85 4y ago
  Interesting! I'm not familiar with how French electric and gas is set up, but in the US we don't really sell electricity or gas to the end user in a market, so there are no market prices. In what way was EDF made to sell below "market" electricity?
  - guerby 4y ago
    EDF electricity is 80% nuclear so fixed initial cost. When Europe pushed for opening the electricity market to private actors France reacted by forcing EDF to sell some amount of GWh of its nuclear electricity to third party at a price fixed by law, called "ARENH" (1). Now the french nuclear industry was put between a rock and a hard place. It has said for a long time that nuclear was ultra ultra cheap and unbeatable and ultra reliable so it could not really ask for a high price relative to historical prices. So we ended up with 42 EUR/MWh nuclear electricity price (which was the minimum price asked by EDF at the time) fixed by law for electricity provided by nuclear. Some years other sources were cheaper (most recent years BTW), some years nuclear was cheaper. Main issue this year is that french nuclear plants have potential safety issues plus various other issue and less than 50% capacity factor (bye bye nuclear = reliable baseload idea BTW) and other sources other than renewable have high price while EDF still has to provide amount of MWh at the now very low relative to market prices ARENH price to competitors. (1) https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/March%C3%A9_de_l%27%C3%A9lectricit%C3%A9_en_France https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/March%C3%A9_de_l%27%C3%A9lectr...

lazide 4y ago

That’s because these aren’t real markets, they’re barely disguised monopolies with captured regulators putting on a show. Which is basically gov’t run power, albeit with less accountability since you can’t figure out who to vote out. Pretty convenient for those running it though!

makomk 4y ago

The reason things were becoming tight for EDF in the first place was mainly that the French government made them sell electricity at below-market prices for political reasons though.

cool_dude85 4y ago
Interesting! I'm not familiar with how French electric and gas is set up, but in the US we don't really sell electricity or gas to the end user in a market, so there are no market prices. In what way was EDF made to sell below "market" electricity?
- guerby 4y ago
  EDF electricity is 80% nuclear so fixed initial cost. When Europe pushed for opening the electricity market to private actors France reacted by forcing EDF to sell some amount of GWh of its nuclear electricity to third party at a price fixed by law, called "ARENH" (1). Now the french nuclear industry was put between a rock and a hard place. It has said for a long time that nuclear was ultra ultra cheap and unbeatable and ultra reliable so it could not really ask for a high price relative to historical prices. So we ended up with 42 EUR/MWh nuclear electricity price (which was the minimum price asked by EDF at the time) fixed by law for electricity provided by nuclear. Some years other sources were cheaper (most recent years BTW), some years nuclear was cheaper. Main issue this year is that french nuclear plants have potential safety issues plus various other issue and less than 50% capacity factor (bye bye nuclear = reliable baseload idea BTW) and other sources other than renewable have high price while EDF still has to provide amount of MWh at the now very low relative to market prices ARENH price to competitors. (1) https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/March%C3%A9_de_l%27%C3%A9lectricit%C3%A9_en_France https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/March%C3%A9_de_l%27%C3%A9lectr...