Electricity market reform: ‘A long-term hedge against fluctuating prices’

The French stance on the electricity market reform has recently repeatedly led to controversy. Céline Pizzotti, Deputy Managing Director of the Franco-German Office for the Energy Transition, thus described the French view in an introductory lecture on Wednesday. France had succeeded in getting nuclear energy included in the rules for support via Contracts for Difference (CfD). Less known is that France has already been promoting renewables via bilateral CfDs since 2017, Pizzotti explained. This provides the state with revenue through skimmed proceeds during the energy crisis, she said. France also introduced state guarantee funds for long-term power purchase agreements (PPAs) – another central point of the upcoming EU reform – earlier this year.