The design of the French Power Market

After a ten-year transition, the French Power Market has been completely opened to competition since 1^st July 2007 as all Member-States of the European Union. The organization around one large vertically integrated company has been replaced by the creation of new entities, regulator, power exchange, new generation and supply companies and RTE, the transmission system operator. RTE is in charge of the maintenance, of the development of the network and of the operation of the system and is responsible of the access to the main grid, on one hand for national users and on the other hand for international exchanges. Despite increasing energy prices, the design of the French power market has been proven as efficient and largely adapted to the development of competition especially with some tools proposed by RTE such as the balancing market, the market coupling with foreign markets or the call for tender for location of new power plants.