More than a million interventions for unpaid invoices took place in France in 2023, according to the energy mediator
The milestone of one million interventions for unpaid energy bills, more than a quarter of which resulted in cuts, was reached in France in 2023, the national energy mediator reported on Friday April 26. The number of interventions is up 3% compared to 2022, and 49% compared to 2019. This is the highest level since this independent public authority recorded them, in 2015.
Increasingly, suppliers are resorting to electrical power limitations rather than firm cuts, due to a change in the practices of some of them but also in regulations. However, these approximately 1,000,908 interventions still gave rise to 178,000 electricity cuts and nearly 87,300 gas cuts, notes the mediator, Olivier Challan Belval.
He asks “minimal access to electricity again”which consists in “prohibit electricity cuts for unpaid bills, for everyone, all year round, and replace them with a limitation on the power of the electricity meter”. Cuts are currently only prohibited during the winter break, between November 1 and March 31.
Since February 2023, new regulations require that outside of the winter break and in the event of unpaid bills, suppliers request, for beneficiaries of the energy check or the housing solidarity fund, a limitation of power prior to the cut-off or upon termination. The national energy mediator’s mission is to propose amicable solutions to disputes with companies in the sector and to inform energy consumers of their rights.
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