Prices capped have nothing to do with nuclear energy and everything to do with stupid EU price policy.

France used to have a monopoly by a state owned company on electrIcity: EDF. But everyone knows that’s terrible, and private market is the way to go. At the time, electricity in France was the cheapest across Europe, but it’s still terrible because… well that HAD to change!

In order to introduce some competition, generation, network and “distribution” (billing…) activities were separated.

Then private distributors (again: billing companies with 0 generation capabilites and 0 grid network) were allocated some quota of electricity from the nuclear electricity generated by EDF at low cost.

In addition, and that’s the European policy: electricity price on the market would be set at the cost of the most expensive generator at a given time. Example: 100% nuclear today: cost is set at cost of nuclear. 95% of electricity from nuclear, 5% from gas: 100% of the electricity that day is billed at cost of gas! 80% nuclear, 15% gas, 5% coal: 100% of the electricity billed at cost of coal!

Why? So that the priate newcomer would get huge benefits and be able to invest in electricity generation. But: there was 0 constrain in doing so, so they just rack up benefits at the expense of EDF and clients! Even better: since they get such low prices from their quota, they’re cheaper than the EDF split distributor company. So at some point, their quota was insufficient for their client’s demand. Time to invest… hahaha! No I’m kidding: time to ask for a bigger quota, of course granted by Macron and his team.

Then came Ukraine invasion. Uh oooh! Gas price exploses, even the “distributors” start to feel the pain. What to do? Well, kick out their clients! Refure to renew contracts, or ask for such a ridicuously high price to make sure they just go! EDF’s hisorical distribution company is legally obligated to take them back. And that’s where the 2nd joke kicks in: EDF gave s much quota of nuclear electricity that they no longer have enough for these clients they have to take. No worries: the “distributors” sold back the electricity quota… at market price, ie mostly gas price!

With the price of gas multiplied n times determining the cost of the whole production, it became unbearable for clients. That’s where genius Macron and Lemaire (Minister of Economy) set a “shield” (cap) on the bills. It’s no shield nor cap. It’s actually the state of France paying the difference in the bills between the actual bill and the cap they set. That’s public money!

And again, that money didn’t go to resources. It went straight to “distributors” (rather call them parasites).

For sure, the heavy maintenance work on the nuclear power plant done at the time didn’t help. They decided to do it on all plants at once (another bad call) and it lasted longer than planned.

But the price issue has nothing to do with nuclear and everything to do with stupid policies.

And now, lesson learned (not): Spain and Portugal got out of that absurd elecricity market. Germany and France (and many other countries) made a few changes and keep going. Because competition with multiple private actors in electricity is good. Can’t you see it??