At the end of last year, the Government created a new shield of anti-crisis measures, which includes new types of reductions in the electricity bill as well as the electricity bill, new initiatives to mitigate the impact of the rise in energy prices on homes. invoice. gas. Two of these measures, two that are truly new and that provide direct assistance to certain households to lower their electricity and gas bills, have yet to take off.
The manager introduced a new type of electric social bonus that is not aimed at vulnerable households, but aimed at facilitating them temporarily. 40% discount on electricity bill for middle class customers. A discount accessible to households with regulated electricity tariffs with an annual income of less than 27,700 euros (for families with two adults and two young children) to 16,800 euros (with a single adult).
The government has announced that up to 1.5 million households can benefit from the new temporary discount. are power plants financed by electricity companies in proportion to their market shares and reflected on the invoices of all customers. However, for now only a total of 9,000 households have benefited from this new social bonus, as confirmed by EL PERIÓDICO DE ESPAÑA from the Prensa Ibérica group of the Ministry of Ecological Transition. However, it was underlined from the Executive Board that the number of beneficiaries increased significantly with around 6,700 new registrations last month.
Tariff for neighboring communities
Neither is progressing at the expected pace. new rate of subsidized gas for owner communities, for the purpose of reducing the invoice price for the centrally heated neighborhood blocks. Since the new batch deadline (neighborhood TUR) was launched with a close to 50% discount last October, Less than 5,000 neighborhood communities benefited from it, Each month, she reviews the savings measures included in the Plan for More Energy Security, as approved this Wednesday by Teresa Ribera, Vice President and Minister for Ecological Transition.
Access to this new subsidized regulated tariff means that communities of beneficiary property owners must undertake certain requirements, in particular installing a separate meter in every home before October and ensuring that the gas consumption of the community does not increase compared to the average of the last three years. Some requirements that make it difficult for residents to come to an agreement to rent the new rate.
“Access to the newly regulated gas tariff for communities is very slow. It does not reach 5,000 customers,” said the vice president, but stressed that gas trading companies have conveyed to the Ministry that there is an increasing interest among potential customers. A month ago, there were 2,300 owner communities already contracted with the new TUR. “This right is a right that anyone can wish to attain, but it is the decision of the owners community as a whole (…) The government’s job is to make sure that no one who may be the beneficiary knows that it exists.”
Faced with the timid deployment of the tariff for neighboring communities, major energy companies continue to register a massive transfer of their individual customers towards regulated natural gas tariffs, due to Government-enabled help to lower the bill in the middle of energy. crisis. After the first avalanche in recent months, contract transfers have not stopped, in fact, they have intensified so far this year.
In the heat of government aid, large energy groups were forced to offer regulated rates (Naturgy, Iberdrola, Endesa and Totalenergies), added nearly 200,000 new private customers to last resort retailers in January alone, according to companies internal data provided by EL PERIÓDICO DE ESPAÑA. A new large customer transfer in addition to the nearly 550,000 registrations in regulated tariffs recorded in the last months of last year – price set by the Government and currently applying big discounts.
Major gas companies are responding to a real avalanche of demand to jump into the regulated sector. A complete trade reversal compared to the trend in recent years, when the customer base of regulated tariffs has shrunk and free market tariffs have grown. In total, about 2.3 million customers have regulated prices, about 35% more than last summer. Nearly 6 million customers continue to use the free gas market tariffs, the prices of which are freely determined by the companies.