EDF will sell an extra 20 TWh of nuclear power to French competitors in 2022

The French government has forced EDF to sell an additional 20 TWh of nuclear power generation in 2022 under the ARENH to alternative suppliers at €46.2/MWh to limit the rise in electricity tariffs. In addition, the authorities have postponed a portion of the 2022 tariff increase over a 12-month period starting from 1 February 2023, applying to the residential and “blue professional” regulated tariffs customers, as well as to all professional customers located in the non-interconnected zones, to limit their tariff increase of February 2022 at 4%.

The ARENH law (Accès régulé à l'électricité nucléaire historique, 2010) obliges EDF to sell part of its nuclear generation (up to 100 TWh/year, i.e. around a quarter of its production) to alternative suppliers on the wholesale market at a regulated price (“ARENH price”), which has been set by the CRE at €42/MWh since 2012. In early December 2021, the French Energy Regulation Commission (CRE) received requests for 160 TWh of nuclear power generation under the ARENH mechanism from alternative suppliers for 2022, which is 10% more than in the previous year (146 TWh). As demand was higher than the 100 TWh cap, the regulator decided that all the 81 electricity suppliers that passed an order would receive around 62% of the amount they requested.

In addition, EDF has revised its nuclear output estimate from 330 - 360 TWh to 300 – 330 TWh for 2022. This revision is the result of the extension of the outage period for 5 of EDF's French nuclear reactors, including Civaux 1, Civaux 2, Chooz 1, Chooz 2 and Penly 1, due to defaults close to the welds on the pipes of the safety injection system (SIS) circuit.