In the United Kingdom, a group of nearly fifty unions representing more than 5 million workers recently asked the government to nationalize the five largest energy suppliers in the country. The aim is for the State to be able to mitigate the significant increases in energy prices that households have been experiencing for the past two years.
Posted at 11:00 a.m.
For its part, the French government has announced its intention to take full control of Electricité de France (EDF), in which it already holds more than 80% of the capital. The objective announced by Paris is to strengthen the country’s energy independence.
Finally, in Germany, the government has indicated that it wants to take a 30% stake in the capital of Uniper, the main importer of Russian gas in the country, since its financial situation has been damaged by the actions of Moscow.
With the current energy crisis, which the International Energy Agency has declared to be the worst in modern history, energy has come back to the fore, at the top of states’ concerns.
Even if the situations are different from one country to another, these important developments show how energy has once again become a red light on the radar screen of States, anxious to take more control of a key sector of their economy. and the well-being of citizens.
The security of energy supply, formerly devolved in many countries to the private sector, sometimes to foreign entities, appears more and more as an activity to be placed in the total or partial bosom of national governments.
Broadly speaking, the energy performance of countries is assessed according to three criteria, known in the industry as the energy trilemma: security of supply, price and environmental sustainability.
PHOTO ANDREAS GEBERT, REUTERS ARCHIVES
Uniper gas storage facility near Kraiburg am Inn. Uniper is the main importer of Russian gas into Germany.
In recent years, the prize has been placed at the top of the agenda, in particular to support the competitiveness of national economies. Germany thus took advantage of the low cost of Russian gas to establish its industrial strength at the end of the Second World War.
With the growing issue of climate change, environmental sustainability has been taken up a notch and has given rise to many programs and policies by governments and companies to reduce the emissions associated with their activities.
The Russian invasion of Ukraine, the sanctions adopted by Western countries against Russia and the ensuing threat to the supply of Russian gas to Europe have upset the order of priorities in this trilemma.
Security of supply, ie the stable and reliable delivery of energy, an element largely taken for granted in recent decades, has suddenly become an issue that all states now want to better control.
We can therefore foresee several movements to this end on the part of governments over the next few years: the States that already have this sector under their control will not be juggling privatization anytime soon. And, like France, countries that have over time ceded shares to private operators will want to regain control over the future of the sector.
This issue does not only arise elsewhere. Here in Canada, the operation of line 5, this pipeline bringing oil from western Canada to Ontario and Quebec via the northern United States, is surrounded by uncertainty. The Michigan authorities do not want it to be modernized, fearing leaks under the Great Lakes where this infrastructure passes.
This situation surely makes the leaders in Ottawa regret the decision taken at the time by the promoters, i.e. in the early 1950s, not to have built the pipeline solely on Canadian territory: the decision to pass through American territory was essentially aimed reduce the overall cost of the project.
Quebec in control of its electricity
The events of 2022 shed new light on the wisdom of the decision taken 60 years ago regarding Quebec control over the electricity sector.
Despite a few calls, sparse over time, for the privatization of Hydro-Québec, our decision-makers have always insisted on retaining full control of the state-owned company. Hydro-Quebec, as we know, nationalized the private electricity companies present in the territory in the early 1960s, essentially to supply electricity at the same price, stable and affordable, throughout Quebec. This it has accomplished since then, while paying a generous annual dividend to its shareholder.
We bet that with the energy traumas of this year, these calls for the privatization of the state company will become very rare in the years to come.