(Article published on 02/02/2024 at 6:07 PM and updated with GRDF’s response on 02/02/2024 at 6:37 PM)
After the hike in power bills, effective from Thursday, gas is set to become more expensive soon despite a drop in market prices. From July 1, 2024, everyone using this energy source will have to pay more for their supply. And this, not because of the new consumption tax, but to finance the distribution network.
And for good reason, the number of French people connected to natural gas has fallen by almost 10% in two years, mechanically increasing the contribution of each of them to share the costs of maintaining the 200,000 km pipeline. The result: After four years of near stability, these tariffs will increase by 27.5% in the period 2024-2027, the Energy Regulatory Commission (CRE), the administrative authority responsible for setting tariffs, announced public gas networks this Friday.
In concrete terms, this would increase the average customer’s total bill for heating with gas by 5.5%, or an additional 7.30 euros per month (87.60 euros per year), CRE calculates. For users consuming gas only for domestic hot water and cooking (excluding heating), this increase will amount to +10.4%, corresponding to 2.20 euros more per month (26.40 euros per year). This is a significant increase, but less than what the network manager, GRDF, had requested. Moreover, this is not a big surprise: at the beginning of last November, CRE announced that this network maintenance rate will soon increase, which at the time was a figure of 30%.
However, this increase is in addition to the January 1 increase on gas consumption (or excise), which rose from 8.37 euros per megawatt hour (MWh) to 16.37 euros per MWh due to the end of the tariff shield. Placed by the government during a crisis.
“Catching Up With the Past”
According to the regulator, this significant increase in the price of gas distribution per kilowatt hour is essentially explained by the fact that the tariffs for the previous period, that is from 2020 to 2024, were negotiated in 2019, i.e. before the shock. Even energy crises and epidemics.
” As a result, it has not been able to absorb well the rise in inflation and fall in consumption. So there is a very significant process of catching up on the past, which represents 20% of the 27%. », explains Emmanuelle Wargon, president of CRE, to La Tribune.
” This catch-up is mainly linked to the economic events of the last 4 years: the health crisis, the energy crisis and the climate crisis. During the same period, the price remained constant and therefore did not cover all the costs of the company. », GRDF reacted immediately.
then ” This big price march In July 2024, prices will change in 2025, 2026 and 2027 only based on inflation and the factor associated with the reduction of gas consumption necessary to achieve France’s climate objectives. However, despite this expected reduction in consumption, gas networks will still be necessary, especially to distribute biomethane, this “renewable gas” produced from various wastes. This will maintain the level of investment and operating costs of these infrastructures. Gold, ” When you have a numerator that is constant and a denominator that is decreasing, the unit price only increases
», underlines Emmanuel Worgan.
Towards a more shared system?
In this new context, CRE is called “ Higher demand by not accepting large increases in operating costs », explains its president. Some of GRDF’s requests have thus been revised downwards, particularly on the budget allocated to its communications. For the period 2024-2027, operating costs will increase by 9% compared to the costs observed in 2022. A lower increase in costs than observed during the previous period. For its part, GRDF “ This takes into account the new demanding tariff “WHO “But a much larger demonstration effort will be needed “, the company said in a press release.
The regulator also plans to amortize new investments faster to prevent them from overspending during periods when customers will be lean.
HAS In the long term, this evolution in consumption will undoubtedly start a thorny debate on the principle of network financing: should we maintain a system where only gas customers pay for gas infrastructure or, on the contrary, switch to a new one. , a more shared mechanism? Some observers thus envisage the consolidation of the costs of using the gas network with the electricity network. A real paradigm shift.