The taskforce in charge of delivering France's national carbon price floor proposal for the power sector will publish its final report next Monday, a source close to the discussions said Thursday.
French energy minister Segolene Royal's official agenda showed Monday will be spent on the presentation of one year of results since the implementation of the energy transition law, though it does not mention a news conference on the final carbon price report.
The authors of the report, due to be finalized by the beginning of July, are -- as designated by Royal in April -- former development minister Pascal Canfin, economist Alain Grandjean, and Engie CEO Gerard Mestrallet.
The focus of the final report is likely to be heavily centred on the proposal at EU level for a carbon price corridor.
The interim report published by the Canfin-Grandjean-Mestrallet taskforce on June 8 contained no reference as to how the national French carbon price floor proposal would roll out, and was concerned with the implementation of a price corridor at EU level and a price at an international level.
Royal and French President Francois Hollande have previously committed to include a national carbon price floor, or a minimum price rising over time, as a bill in the budget for next year, with its implementation due in 2017.
Royal, on several occasions, even spelled out the price of the floor at Eur30/mt ($33/mt) of CO2. That compares with the current December EUA price of Eur4.59/mt, as assessed by Platts Wednesday.
In a letter sent to the three report authors in April, seen by Platts, Royal asked the Canfin-Grandjean-Mestrallet mission to devise proposals with a French, European and international focus.
"I would like you to make suggestions for...the implementation of a floor price for the production of electricity at European scale,and also...initially within the national perimeter, with the ripple effect that would generate," she said.
EDF, which operates France's 58 nuclear reactors, has been reported as saying it supported a proposal for carbon price floor in France, or in Europe, and the price should be at least Eur20-Eur30/mt or "a lot higher".
However at the other end of the spectrum, Uniper, which operates coal and gas-fired plants in France, has told employees at its 600-MW Provence-5 coal plant in France it will become "economically impossible" to operate the plant when France has a national carbon floor, according to FNME-CGT union, the energy industry's main labor union, earlier this year
An increase in the price of CO2 will likely affect coal plants more than gas plants. According to the energy ministry, a standard 250 MW power plant operating 8,000 hours/year emits 1.7 mt of CO2 if it runs on coal (0.87mtCO2/MWh, considering a thermal efficiency factor of 40%), and 0.72 mt of CO2 if it runs on gas (0.36mtCO2/MWh, considering a thermal efficiency factor of 55%).
France has, however, seen a significant scaling down of its coal fleet.
Uniper's coal-units at Emile Huchet and Provence are two of only five coal plants still operating in France. From 2013-15, several coal-fired plants, with a total 4 GW capacity, were retired to comply with EU environmental regulations, according to RTE.
French coal capacity is down 30% this year from 2015, RTE data shows.
Out of 10 coal units operating in 2015, only five were still online at the beginning of this year, each of about 600 MW capacity. In addition to Uniper's plants, EDF has its Cordemais-4, Cordemais-5 and Havre-4 plants operating.
