Derrière les tarifs il y a, en fait, l'avantage compétitif que la rente nucléaire procure à EDF et qui fausse les règles du jeu de la concurrence. En France, près de 80 % de l'électricité sort des réacteurs d'EDF, l'une des moins chères d'Europe. Si les prix sur le marché libre reflètent plutôt les prix européens, calés sur le kilowatt-heure produit par la dernière centrale construite (souvent un cycle combiné gaz), les prix régulés payés par la majorité des foyers sont assez bas grâce aux centrales nucléaires construites entre le milieu des années 1970 et la fin des années 1990. Au seul bénéfice d'EDF.
Behind teh regulated tariffs , one finds, in fact, the competitive advantage provided to EDF by nuclear, and which distorts competition. In France, 80% of electricity is produced by EDF, one of the cheapest producers in Europe. If free market price are closer to European prices set on the price of the most recently built plant (usually a combined cylce gas plant), regulated prices paid by most households are pretty low thanks to the nuclear plants built in the 70s to the 90s. For EDF's sole benefit
The number of errors or omissions in one paragraph is quite stunning:
but of the one with the highest marginal cost needed to respond to demand
Aha - much clearer than in the main text.
/nitpicking. Rien n'est gratuit en ce bas monde. Tout s'expie, le bien comme le mal, se paie tot ou tard. Le bien c'est beaucoup plus cher, forcement. Celine
NYT says we've lost 5 million jobs here since the "recession" started. "I said, 'Wait a minute, Chester, You know I'm a peaceful man...'" Robbie Robertson
a low-cost producer distorts competition. That's an interesting notion, to say the least;
This appeared to be the case in Southern California in the '90s. One major company raised its prices for gasoline and waited. If the other majors didn't follow suit they could rescind the increase. But the others followed suit. No one had the capacity to replace the supply of another major so why compete at the margin if you could get more.
The increases were noteworthy for not being accounted for by increases in the prices of crude or the availability of refined product for the local market. An uncouth business writer for the LA Times wrote an article on the phenomenon. The large vendors learned to be more subtle. Articles appeared with greater frequency explaining the peculiarities of the California gasoline market, refineries came to be more prone to outages during the peak season, etc. As the Dutch said while fighting the Spanish: "It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."
It's just not usually explained like this: people tend to find average cost of production more "logical" a pricing mechanism, which means that market pricing is actually rather counter-intuitive.
But it's never explained properly. In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes
But it's never explained properly.
