OREANDA-NEWS. Nearly a quarter of large power consumers in France changed their existing plans and opted for market-based offers as regulated tariffs will come to an end on 1 January, French energy regulator CRE said today.

In a bid to liberalise the French power market, from 1 January 2016 regulated tariffs will no longer apply to around 450,000 large industrial power consumers that use more than 29kW of electricity a year. Instead, they will be required to opt for market-based offers.

Over 100,000 large consumers have already done so, with 75,000 clients having changed their existing offers as of 1 November.

"In the power market, this is the first time that consumers show massively their determination to pick the most attractive and the cheapest offer," CRE's president Philippe de Ladoucette said. "It means an important step further towards opening the market to competition."

The energy minister Segolene Royal last month called for energy suppliers to propose innovative and competitive offers that will allow these consumers to reduce their energy bills.

To avoid any power cuts at the start of next year, Royal is expected to propose a solution in the next weeks to improve the support mechanism for large consumers and encourage them to move towards market-based offers.

At the end of June, over 87pc of large industrial consumers were still subscribed to regulated tariffs proposed by the state-controlled utility EdF, CRE said.