France to Reap $31B Windfall from Renewable Energy Firms

It's all rather opaque, so I'm not positive, but it sounds like the French government was expecting to provide 40 Billion in subsidies, but because the price of energy rose, they only need to pay 7.6 Billion. It's a creative way of saying "Renewables still need subsidies even when energy prices are at record highs".

From the cited French regulatory statement[0]:

> The CRE carried out its annual assessment of the amount of charges to be compensated by the State to operators for 2023 in its deliberation of 13 July 2022. This exercise is based in particular on the assessment of the projected expenses for 2022 and 2023. However, the exceptional context of crisis and, in the first place, the significant increase in wholesale energy prices in recent months are considerably modifying the outlook for the evolution of these forecasts.

> The expenses to be compensated by the State to operators for 2023 thus amount to – €32.7 billion (instead of – €11.1 billion in the July 2022 deliberation), down €40.3 billion compared to the assessment carried out in July 2021 for the expenses to be compensated in 2022, which amounted to €7.6 billion.

[0]https://www.cre.fr/Actualites/la-cre-reevalue-les-charges-de...

France is one of the countries that gives a price guarantee to producers of renewable energy. If the market (wholesale) price is below I think 8c per kWh, they still get their 8c. But it's also capped to that price so it can't get any higher. When the prices are over the limit, the government gets to keep the difference, and the market prices were above that all year. It says so in the article:

> France will reap €30.9 billion ($31 billion) from renewable-power producers over two years as Europe’s energy crisis boosts wholesale prices beyond guaranteed levels.

This is in contrast to e.g. Germany that also gives a guarantee of the minimal prices, but the producers get to pocket the money even if it's way above the guarantee.