this At the end of last year, the Government introduced a control system for extraordinary profits. to prevent electricity companies from taking advantage of the price increases caused by the energy crisis to increase their income.
goal prevent energy companies from selling nuclear, hydroelectric and some of the electricity they produce renewable exorbitant prices The rapidly rising wholesale market due to the price of natural gas and CO2 rights, costs that these technologies do not support.
The mechanism, activated by the government and revised and modified several times since, obliges nuclear, hydraulic and renewable companies to return the extraordinary revenue from the contracts signed, above a maximum of 67 euros per megawatt hour. (MWh, according to government calculations). profiting from the crisis and don’t.
The enforcement activated the ceiling price at the end of October last year, has been in operation all this year and has extended its validity until the end of 2023 to include the electricity price. The sum of the amounts companies have had to pay due to excess income since last year, plus the forecasts the electricity industry has managed for the remainder of this year, and the Government’s forecasts for the next year, Electricity companies will refund about 800m euros for the cuts.
Since this deduction system came into effect, electricity companies have had to return more than 400 million euros for what they already have. contracts signed above the maximum price The amount of electricity determined by the Government according to data corresponding to the revenue adjustments of El Periódico de España from the Prensa Ibérica group from September 2021 to September 2022.
The National Markets and Competition Commission (CNMC), tasked with making cost and expense clearances for the industry, revealed: Between September and December Last year the reduction in revenue reached 131.8m euros, but has not publicly disclosed the impact of the cuts on energy groups since.
This year, companies continued to bring additional revenue to the electricity system, reaching 270 million between January and September, according to sources in the electricity sector familiar with the liquidations that have been formalized so far. The projections of the energy sector are as follows: yields will rise to 350 million euros throughout 2022The executive estimates there will be around 330 million this year.
The government’s projections for 2023 are for power companies to return to the power system. another 330 million eurosAccording to the ministry draft for electricity system charges for next year, prepared for public comment by the Ministry of Ecological Transition, led by Vice President Teresa Ribera.
Electric Shock-State
The government activated the system in September 2021, forcing some of the nuclear, hydro and renewable companies to generate extraordinary income. Later, the Administrator took advantage of this advantage. macro decree March of anti-crisis measures due to the war in Ukraine, to review the system of reducing extra income and extend it to all contracts signed at high prices (over 67 Euros per MWh).
He also created a special surveillance system to make sure that the big power companies are supposedly “benefiting from heaven” (unexpected profits) along the chain of contracts between companies in the same group, to transferring inflated prices to the final customer.
Electricity companies deny the existence of these extra benefits and emphasize that they sell all their production under bilateral contracts at prices well below the wholesale market. Companies highlight: Brussels proposes to set a maximum price of 180 Euros per MWh for the sale of electricity from these technologies.Almost three times the ceiling set by the Spanish Government.
Considering that the first estimate of the Government is to collect 2,600 million euros from the electricity sector with this mechanism, it is underlined that the fact that only 400 million euros were earned last year shows that companies do not benefit from wholesale market prices. six months (an estimate generated by the initial deduction system and not updated by the Government with subsequent regulatory changes).
On the other hand, the Government opposes that the revenue reduction system serves to control the prices of the electricity companies as it allows the electricity companies to sign all their new contracts and updates for a maximum of these 67 euros. per MWh to avoid this extra revenue return.