The Energy Regulatory Commission (CRE) announced on Friday that it has opened an investigation for abusive practices against an alternative energy provider whose name has not been revealed.
Emmanuelle Wargon, president of CRE, announced on the microphone of Sud Radio that she had launched this second investigation after an initial investigation against the supplier Ohm Energie, opened in early September and still ongoing.
Ms. Wargon did not want to reveal the name of the company in question. The CRE confirmed the information to AFP, without giving further details about the charges against this operator, adding that half a dozen other providers were under “reinforced surveillance.”
Without last name
“The idea is to protect providers who are doing their job well (…) going to catch unscrupulous providers,” declared the president of the CRE on Sud Radio.
Arriving at the head of the commission in August 2022, the former minister said she wanted to be uncompromising “with regard to providers who optimize on people’s misfortune and on the crisis.”
The first investigation is aimed at the alternative supplier Ohm Energie, founded in 2018 and suspected of having bought cheap nuclear electricity from Arenh (a mechanism that allows obtaining an advantageous rate) and of having resold it on the markets at a higher price instead of passing it on. . to his clients.
Facts questioned by Ohm Energy in September, which claimed to have “never sold the slightest kWh of Arenh on the markets”, according to its founding president, François Joubert, a former EDF engineer.
Surveillance
Sky-high prices have prompted the French energy police this summer to step up their vigilance over these alternative operators in France, who also benefit from de facto subsidized electricity purchases, at 46.2 euros per megawatt hour (MWh).
The energy police are trying to find out if some of these providers have resold electricity at a high price on the markets instead of allowing their customers to benefit from this subsidized energy.
At the end of August, the CRE called on suppliers to “adopt responsible behaviour”, amid an increase in wholesale prices, fueled first by the post-Covid recovery and then by the war in Ukraine that pushed up prices for the gas.
Source: BFM TV
