French Co-Op to Offer Homes Eco-Friendly Power
Date: 20-Jun-07
Country: FRANCE
Author: Muriel Boselli
Despite high interest from consumers, the co-op said it faced unfair competition from electricity giant EDF, which buys power from renewable sources at a much lower price, due to subsidies, then feeds it into the national power mix.
French households currently have no option but to buy a mix of power, mainly nuclear-generated, from former monopoly EDF.
From July 1, French users will be able to pick a new supplier when European energy markets open fully, although not many are likely to switch away from EDF as it is often seen as cheap and reliable.
"We have some 70 (household) clients who have signed a contract starting on July 1 and we aim for some 10,000 by 2009," said Patrick Behm, the head of Enercoop, which was launched in September 2006 to bring together renewable energy producers and customers.
France's largest independent power supplier, Poweo said 265 household clients had signed up with it for the same start date.
Behm said each kilowatt hour sold would be 100 percent renewable energy and that most profits would be re-injected in green production tools.
The co-op, which also has around 300 business customers, will charge clients around a third more than EDF's tariffs to provide its customers with energy that has been generated without producing the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide (CO2).
He said clients had to be deeply committed to environmental principles to pay such a large additional sum.
"In the world we live in, it's a powerful act to pay 30 to 40 percent more for green power," Behm said.
The share of renewable power production in total French power output amounts to around 13-14 percent, with hydropower making up most that share.
The European Commission plans to put forward a binding target to produce 20 percent of EU energy needs -- including power generation and biofuels -- from renewable sources by 2020, up from about 7 percent now.
SUBSIDIES GET IN THE WAY
But the nascent co-operative's growth prospects are hindered by the government-set subsidies EDF collects to use expensive renewable energy sources.
The co-op filed a complaint to the European Commission a year ago in protest at what it calls unfair treatment and Behm said it was wrong to think that the French energy markets would actually open fully on July 1.
"EDF manages to control the whole of the renewable market because of this subsidy," Behm said.
Although this now hindered the co-op from aiming to win many more clients in the longer term, Enercoop had a wide field of supporters who could become clients if conditions were right.
"Thanks to our networks, we are looking at a potential market of between 300,000 and 500,000 clients," he said.
Enercoop was founded by the French arms of Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth, the organic food chain Biocoop and other environment-friendly organisations.