Competition pushes producers to provide "green electricity", Le Monde, 21/06/07 Jean-Michel Bezat
On the eve of the opening of the energy market to 25 million individuals, on July 1, all the electricity groups are caressing the “green” fiber of their future customers. And all of them have contracts in which they promise to supply power produced from wind turbines, solar farms, biomass power plants and dams.
For any kilowatt hour (kWh) purchased under such a contract, suppliers agree to put on the network a kWh produced from renewable energy sources.
EDF, which boasts in its latest advertising campaigns of having made "the choice of a world with less CO2" (95% of its production comes from nuclear power plants and dams), offers a "kWh Equilibre" formula (launched in 2004 for professionals) where each electron comes from a renewable source. An additional offer even provides that a small part of the price paid by the consumer will be paid into the fund that EDF created to finance the Cisel project, carried out with the CNRS and the National School of Chemistry of Paris, to develop and develop a new process for producing electricity from solar energy.
Electrabel (Suez) has promised a "100% renewable energy" offer, and like EDF, insists on the group's "energy mix", which gives pride of place to nuclear power plants and dams of the Compagnie Nationale du Rhone (CNR) .
Poweo quickly went green by creating a renewable energies subsidiary at the end of 2006. It offers "bio electricity". "For each kWh consumed, Poweo buys 100% green electricity, in the form of" green certificates "from French producers of wind and / or hydraulic energy", explains the group. The latter promises a double guarantee: the certification of the origin by an official body and the sending once a year of a certificate corresponding to the consumption of renewable electricity.
"Ecological and ethical"
More original, the cooperative company Enercoop, which is part of the solidarity economy, will only offer "green" electricity, but no full-off-peak hour formula in order to promote energy savings. The competition cannot be done on the price because of the maintenance of the regulated tariffs for the sole benefit of EDF, the sales argument will be "ecological and ethical", she indicates. Launched in September 2006, this company will use the relay of solidarity and environmental networks (Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth ...) to target 10 customers in 000. Two thousand residential customers have already knocked on its door, ensures Enercoop.
The offers must be attractive. Because with the exception of activists, consumers refuse to pay too much for this energy. However, the production cost of a kWh of "green" electricity is higher than that of a kWh of nuclear power. Even if, in the end, it is the consumers who foot the bill by paying the contribution to the public electricity service. At the end of 2005, a Eurobarometer poll for the Brussels Commission indicated that two thirds of Europeans were prepared to pay 5% more in the name of sustainable development. But not a euro more.
http://abonnes.lemonde.fr/web/article/0 ... 035,0.html