An energy crisis of unprecedented magnitude. To the point of forcing several factories to reduce or even temporarily stop their activity. In 2022, French industry was hit hard by the explosion in energy prices. In detail, the average annual price per megawatt hour of electricity paid by companies in the sector jumped 45%, to 113 euros, after an increase of 21% in 2021, an Insee study reported this Thursday.
By way of comparison, the average price of the megawatt hour had increased by 3% per year between 2017 and 2020. The price reached in 2022 was even 70% higher than the price of 2014, the year in which the MWh was the most expensive of the last decade.
For its part, the average price of gas MWh more than doubled (+107%) last year for industrial companies, after a strong increase of 65% already observed in 2021. However, this same price had fallen by 6 % per year on average between 2013 and 2020.
Price increases that depend on the size of the company and the type of contract
Large corporations have been the most affected by the increase in energy prices. In electricity and gas, those with 250 or more employees experienced increases of 46 and 121% respectively, compared to +39 and +69% of companies with 20 to 49 employees.
The magnitude of the price increase suffered by industrial companies is also directly linked to the contract they had signed, with the most vulnerable being those that had a fixed price contract with a maturity date to renew in 2022.
Among them, 51% experienced an increase in electricity prices of 150% or more at the time of renewal (and even 60% of those who renewed their contract in the second half of 2022), compared to 29% on average for companies with another type of contract. .
In addition, only 8% of the companies with a fixed price contract during a contractual period and 14% of those with a contract indexed to wholesale prices did not suffer any increase when renewing their electricity contract in 2022, while it did happen with 22 and 21% of companies at a regulated rate or whose contract was indexed to a regulated rate.
Same for gasoline. In fact, almost half (46%) of the companies that had to renew their fixed price contract in 2022 suffered a price increase per MWh of more than 150%, that is, 20 points more than the companies whose gas price It was indexed to the market price. .
8 out of 10 companies kept their contract
Except when the deadline falls at the wrong time, the fixed price contract is even more reassuring for companies. If a large majority of those who had to renew their contract (83%) maintained the same type of gas contract last year, 20% of those who had a contract at the price indexed in the market opted for a fixed contract.
More than half of the industrial companies have transferred the rise in energy prices to their prices
Faced with the vertiginous rise in energy prices, more than half of industrial companies (52%) passed this rise on to their sales prices. 44% have also reduced their margins and 29% say they have used cash. In addition, 38% of the companies surveyed have adapted their production methods, 29% have invested in reducing or optimizing their consumption, 4% have reduced their activity and 2% have temporarily halted it.
By 2023, on the other hand, industrial companies seem more likely to want to increase their prices (61%) rather than compress their margins. And among those who had already raised their prices last year, 80% plan to continue doing so this year.
Source: BFM TV
