[en] This paper examines the different ways of introducing competition in the electricity supply and its interest in terms of improvement of the structure of incentives in reference to the recent experiments of liberalization. The basic hypothesis is that the needs of technical coordination of the electric industry are the main source of the anterior vertical and horizontal integration. The present dramatic progress of the information and communication techniques allows a redefinition of the former structures in facilitating the establishment of coordination between decentralized agents to preserve the network externalities and to manage the system constraints. Nowadays the real problem is focused on the very complex definition of arrangements to organise efficient competition between generators, or between suppliers. Three key-points are developed: the organisation of the vertical and horizontal ownership arrangements (to which degree could we allow the firms present in the natural monopoly activities to be present in the competitive activities?); the rules structuring the arrangement in order to combine efficient short term coordination and the incentives of competition; the crucial role of a strong regulation to reach efficiency and price decrease. (author)

[en] As electric industries have been liberalised or privatised later than other public utilities, notably in developed countries, this article first recalls that this activity has been during a long time a monopoly hold by a public service, and precisely planned with tariffs regulated by public authorities. Then, the author explains how deregulation is performed for such an industry to allow competition to be introduced at all levels of the electric sector. He describes the operation mode of the wholesale market which is structured in an hourly market due to the non-storable characteristic of electricity, describes retail price formation by pilling up the wholesale price, regulated tariffs of transport and distribution, and a tax aimed at paying the cost of public policies. This price can be compared with the regulated tariff which previously encompassed everything without any dissociation. Finally, he highlights the main defects and drawbacks of this market which do not allow long term investments in base equipment, back up equipment and on low carbon equipment (renewable, nuclear, and others)

[en] The Fukushima accident again raises the question of the social and economic viability of nuclear technology. On an international basis, it should be necessary to reach the maximum level of safety for every nuclear power plant (NPP) to avoid any further accident in order to preserve the acceptability of the technology. To obtain a significant orientation in upgrading safety standards in matter of NPP design and operation and institutional practices for control and safety in all countries with nuclear facilities, the ideal would be to succeed in setting up a binding international governance. This article examines the incentives and the conditions to achieve it. These incentives on the States appear not to be strong enough at the global level in order that they delegate part of their sovereignty in this domain. It seems that we must be content with a weak governance. This governance combining the role of the IAEA as a facilitator, and different peer pressures mechanisms at the level of the NPP operators, the reactors vendors and the safety authority. We observe that each of these mechanisms is presently being reinforced. But how strong this weak governance is strong enough? (author)

[en] The stake of investments is all too often underplayed in deregulation reforms focused on market roles and de-integration measures. The presentation criticizes first the optimistic approach of the theory of investment incentives through market signals when it is applied to deregulated electricity industries. The greater part of the investment in base-Load and peak equipment should be made profitable by income from very high price during peak and extreme peak periods. Next, there is a problem of political acceptability, as the wholesale prices may reach extremely high and often unexpected levels and the system may face risk of shortage in the period of needs of new capacities. The problem is then addressed in the context of the mature electricity industries in North countries. Given the maturity market, a number of corrective solutions of the pure market model could be envisaged to enforce the incentives to invest, but none of them is a perfect one. The main way is to focus on adaptation of market roles on the supply of power at peaks and extreme peaks by considering capacity adequacy as a public good (with three solutions: capacity payment, reserve obligations, centralized procurement by auctioning for peak capacity). The observation of reforms suggests also the validity of some other solutions based on a limitation of the competition by allowance for long-term contracts and vertical integration between production and supply. The Transaction Cost Theory gives a justification of the recourse to these ones. Observation suggests also another solution in opposition with the canonical approach of the competition, the regulatory tolerance for horizontal integration and smooth market power exercise, which implies a specific political culture to tolerate it. Finally the question is extended to the specific problem of developing countries characterized by irregular growth. It is argued that reforms must be designed in view of the importance of the investment stake through long-term co-ordination and reduction of investment risks. Indeed experiences of Latin American liberalized industries show that they have to include a number of competition-based imperfections and to allow ongoing exercise of market power for prices rising above competition prices. The Single Buyer model or some variants of it appears to be a good alternative if one wishes to avoid the twists and turns of the competition paradigm. The difficulty with this model rises from the institutional conditions to make it efficient and not over-costly

[en] The Fukushima accident raises again the issue of the social and economic viability of nuclear technology. To re-evaluate this viability, we analyse the past process of internalisation of external costs of nuclear energy, which present the specificities to be chanted by accidents and has had a constant effect of complexification. This process has provoked a de-organisation of the classical learning process reflected in constant cost increases and the change of social preferences, to end up by the lack of competitiveness before climate policies. Independent institutions of safety regulation have become essential elements of the social embeddedness of nuclear technology at the expense of technology stability and standardization, condition of its competitiveness. In this perspective, the paper argues that the new sequence of social costs' internalization opened by Fukushima will have limited effects on costs, because of anterior steps of safety improvements. Nuclear technology complexification reaches its asymptote: it is being to overcome the challenge of 'learning by major accidents'. On the other hand nuclear institutions must be re-designed in such a way that it could guarantee maximum safety records and minimum residual risks by going to the other root of the safety issue, the degree of independence and capabilities of the safety authorities in every country, what cannot be decreed. It is nevertheless at this price that could be preserved the global public good of the social acceptance of nuclear technology by limiting drastically chance of new accidents. (author)

[en] This book is a summary version of the content of a 3rd cycle thesis in the field 'Economics of Energy' presented at the Grenoble Social Sciences University, in March 1975. The optimization approach in the energy sector is briefly precized in view of clarifying the economic bases of the models. The field of action of the ENERGIE model is then defined, the decision structure and the specific situation of the French energy sector being taken into account. The principles of the model and the simplifying hypotheses for the representation and formalism of this sector are presented. The data and parameters used are defined with the results optimization

[en] Renewable energies are earmarked to take up a very significant share in the output of some of Europe's electricity Systems. The variability of their contribution makes the maintenance of the system's physical equilibrium a veritable challenge, once the share reaches a certain level. Apart from the necessary technical improvements, the transformation of the System first and foremost requires upgrading the way the different energy markets function

[en] In the name of the low-carbon transition, a wobbly political compromise has led to an arbitrary sharing of the electricity mix without any economic or environmental basis, by reducing the share of the nuclear company in electric power production to 50 pc to make way for renewable energies to reach a share of 40 pc by 2030. Some have sought to give an economic rationality to this policy based on these two means targets based on two intuitions: the diversification value of the mix, a kind of option value of the choice to break the irreversibility effect of the nuclear choices in the 70's and 80's, and the option value of the choice to wait in the nuclear domain to avoid new irreversibilities. This paper 'de-knit' this reasoning by showing that it does not in any way respect the conditions of rigour of the reasoning of the theory of option values: to consider in detail the possible options, to identify precisely the uncertainties and risks attached to each of the options as well as those emanating from the context of each option, and to anticipate their effects of irreversibility. In the end, the way to pose the problem reveals an unfounded bias in favor of the economic competitiveness of intermittent renewable energies, a groundless denial of any possibility of economic mastery of the nuclear sector in high safety conditions, and an emotional approach to nuclear risk. The policy of decarbonization of the electric power sector based on 2030-2035 low-carbon technology market share targets, which pretends to open up future to limit risks, turns its back on all economic logic and leads to ignore the 'unexpected effects' of any large scale policy for the development of intermittent renewable energies

[en] Apart from the UK where it has been widely discussed in the 2011 Electricity Market Reform, energy experts communities are still unaware of the impacts that carbon policies directly focused on the development of low carbon technologies produce on the electricity market regime. Public co-ordination with long term arrangements needs to be introduced as a substitute to long term co-ordination by the market. Indeed, the current market co-ordination makes carbon prices ineffective at orienting investors towards low carbon technologies: fossil fuel generation technologies are preferred because their investment risks are much lower in the market regime. So, in order to avoid delayed investment aiming at the decarbonization of electricity systems, a number of new market arrangements which lower the investment risk of these technologies are being selected by governments. But, as these low carbon equipments develop, long term co-ordination by the market for the other technologies (peaking units, CCGT) will fade away. That means that in the future, public co-ordination and planning will completely replace market players' decisions, not only for low carbon technologies, but for every capacity development. (authors)

[en] The author first outlines that the reduction of the cost of renewable energies does not result in a higher competitiveness for these energies, notably because of their variability, and that the development of storage techniques will not solve this issue of economic valorization. He also outlines that there is an economic optimum for the decarbonization with these low-carbon technologies for a given emission level per MWh or a given price of avoided ton of CO₂, and that this reference to an optimum is forgotten when a target production by renewable energies is specified, such a specification being therefore economically inefficient. This means that an optimal share of varying renewable energy production is in fact much lower that the targeted share (80 to 100 pc)