Small businesses whose energy contracts are expiring should not “necessarily” wait to sign a new offer, said Monday the president of the Commission for Energy Regulation (CRE) Emmanuelle Wargon while the executive has multiplied the warnings.
The government intends to call to order the energy companies that do not play “sufficiently the game” with SMEs by inflating prices.
They are being convened on Wednesday to sign “a code of conduct” and commit to ensuring “reasonable prices”, especially for small businesses whose contracts are expiring.
If a new contract “presents an incomprehensible increase”, “do not sign!”, has already hammered the Minister Delegate for SMEs Olivia Gregoire to the contractors, while President Emmanuel Macron denounced “crazy prices”.
“I don’t necessarily say, ‘don’t sign’, I say, ‘look carefully at the conditions (…) proposed by the suppliers, compare'” but “it’s not necessarily a good calculation to wait (…) until the last minute until January 1, so as not to find yourself in the situation where you no longer have
contract at all”, estimated the president of the CRE, questioned by BFM Business on the case of SMEs.
“If you are around 400 and 500 euros the megawatt-hour for one year, it is about the market price and there is no reason to wait (…) there you sign,” added the president of the gendarme of the energy market in France, inviting customers to look at “the price in absolute value” rather than
the increase itself.
In France, the surge in energy prices caused by the Russian gas supply crisis has been aggravated by the unavailability of part of the nuclear fleet, with almost half of the reactors shut down, which has weakened electricity production.
According to Emmanuelle Wargon, this price increase reflects “a form of risk premium on the French market that will be there” until all the reactors are back in service, by February, according to the schedule announced by EDF.
“This makes prices very high (…) very volatile, so it is more difficult to understand the prices that suppliers offer,” said the former minister, who believes that however “many (…) make a great effort of transparency (…) to try to protect their customers and make the best prices possible.
