Europe is in danger of rolling electricity shortages • Hacker News Board

Post by zh3 » Thu, Oct 06, 2022, 10:57 AM UTC

pjerem wrote: post #286

zh3 wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Erm, EDF. I'm in favour of nuclear, but EDF/Hinckley Point are how not to do it (I think the only residential consumers they have left have failed to do any sort of shopping around/don't care about the cost - very possibly different for business/vested interests).

That’s not the whole story. EDF is a very competent company which have everything needed to provide cheap electricity to the whole country while making money. The point is (and I think it’s a scandal) that EDF is forced, by law, to resell its nuclear electricity to its competitors at an under the market price. EDF is also required to offer an electricity plan with a law fixed price. Which is a good thing because hist…

Eh, EDF charges more money directly than other suppliers (as a direct residential consumer, it was only a couple of years back I discovered how much more expensive they are). Plus as for making money, they are heavilty debt-laden and need the Frech government to bail them out[0].

* [0] https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/jul/19/france-to-p...