Nov. 6 (Bloomberg) -- Electricite de France SA, the world’s biggest operator of nuclear reactors, and other French utilities have nearly finished a proposal to improve power-generation data that lags behind neighboring countries.

The plan represents a “big step forward” and is expected to be complete in coming weeks, Jonas Tornquist, head of transmission and regulation at EDF Trading Ltd. in London, said today in an e-mail. EDF competitors E.ON AG, RWE AG and Vattenfall AB publish individual plant data in near real time in Germany, the region’s biggest market.

Generation data is important because prices hinge on how much power is being produced at any given time. Electricity, unlike other commodities, can’t be stored, so unexpected supply cuts in one country may mean soaring prices in another part of Europe’s interconnected markets. France is Europe’s second biggest power consumer.

European Federation of Energy Traders, an Amsterdam-based lobby group that includes EDF and E.ON trading units among more than 90 members, proposed new measures on Oct. 27 to the European Commission, including real-time disclosure of availability for plants generating more than 100 megawatts.

“There is no reason why all generators in all markets should not be asked to comply with this standard with immediate effect,” the chairman of EFET’s electricity committee, Peter Styles, said yesterday in a telephone interview. The Amsterdam- based group got a mandate after discussions in May to advise the European Commission on how to increase transparency in Europe’s power and gas markets.

Infrequent

EDF is working with the French Electricity Association UFE to improve production transparency, Tornquist said. The state- controlled utility publishes aggregated generation availability on a daily basis via the company’s grid unit Reseau de Transport d’Electricite. Individual plant data is available via infrequently updated recorded phone lines.

EDF Trading worked with EFET on the new proposals and has been supportive, Tornquist said. He declined to say if the new French proposals include plant-by-plant data for EDF, which operates 58 reactors in the country, and other utilities. EDF Chief Operating Officer Jean-Louis Mathias said in July the company may publish more data this year.

Members of EFET, formed in 1999, include producers with plants and traders without physical assets. Its board agreed on the measures on Aug. 28 “after much debate,” Styles said.

‘Good Initiative’

“It sounds like a really good initiative,” Konstantin Lenz, head of German analysis at Berlin-based Markedskraft Deutschland GmbH, said about the power group’s proposal. “The current voluntary initiatives with aggregated data have been disappointing,” he said yesterday in a phone interview.

The most transparent markets are in the Nordic region, the U.K. and Spain, “leaving the rest to catch up,” Styles said. Nordic plant availability is disclosed as much as three years ahead by the local exchange.

Some of the group’s utility members are disclosing power plant data voluntarily. In Germany, E.ON, RWE and Vattenfall, together with EnBW Energie Baden-Wuerttemberg AG started publishing aggregated generation data in 2006.

“We hope to see these proposals incorporated into legislation over the next year,” Paul Dawson, head of regulatory affairs at Essen-based RWE’s trading unit, said by e- mail. “We look forward to the rest of the European Union catching up to the standards we have set.”

E.ON and RWE in 2007 and Vattenfall a year later began to publish data on a plant by plant basis in Germany.

‘Additional Transparency’

“We wanted to set an industry standard and contribute to the ongoing development,” said Georg Oppermann, a spokesman for E.ON Energy Trading SE. Binding pan-European rules are “vital,” he said by e-mail.

If implemented, EFET’s proposal “will provide additional transparency in the European power generation markets that are dominated by a few monopoly incumbents,” said Paymon Aliabadi, head of Gunvor International BV’s global energy division. The energy trader, which is preparing to enter Europe’s power and gas markets next quarter, doesn’t own any power plants.

Disclosure should include public notification of unplanned outages “as soon as they become apparent,” according to EFET’s Styles. “No trading to cover a shortfall should take place prior to the notification.”

The energy unit of the commission, the EU’s executive arm, wasn’t immediately able to comment. EFET’s gas committee is still reviewing what proposals to recommend for the region’s natural gas markets, Styles said.

The U.K. is now the only European gas market that provides supply and demand data in near real time.

“We’d also welcome the extension of similar transparency requirements to the gas sector where things remain distinctly murky,” RWE’s Dawson said.

EDF Trading’s Tornquist agreed. “It is also important that proposals on the power side are matched by equal arrangements for fundamental data about gas production.”

To contact the reporter on this story: Lars Paulsson in London at lpaulsson@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: November 6, 2009 14:07 EST