La coexistence entre tarifs réglementés et prix de marché dans le secteur électrique français

The pre-liberalized sector provided electricity consumers with a supply at regulated prices. With the liberalization movement, consumers are now faced with a new price risk. The purpose of this paper is to review, firstly the price policy conducted in France since the fifties, and secondly to show how tie liberalization movement generates a different price system. Using an economic dispatching model of the system, we simulate the market prices that would result from the player's competition to study the coexistence of regulated prices and market process in terms of price system performance, competition and investment incentives. We show that if suppliers are subjected to too low regulated prices, they may not cover their supply costs and therefore threaten their profitability and participation in the market.