This decline gas prices and one light price Over 100 Euros many days left during the month Prices of polluting emissions as evidence. In April 2021, the cost of CO2 emission rights made headlines for their rising cost, which reached 48 euros per MWh. Almost two years later, twice the cost of pollutingstanding at an average of 90 euros per megawatt-hour (MWh) over the last thirty days.
Gas has remained at around €40 per megawatt-hour (MWh) in recent weeks. The figure is high compared to the average in recent years (around 20 euros) for this raw material, but far from the maximum 300 euros reached during the summer months and the 150-200 euros after the start of Ukraine. war. Despite this decline, the price of electricity exceeded EUR 100 per MWh on many days of the month. revived by the pressure of emissions rights it has to pay for the most polluting technologies (coal and combined cycles).
Since 2005, Europe has been governed by the Emissions Trading System (ETF). limits emissions energy-intensive facilities (power plants and industry) and airlines. Each of these companies is given the right to a limited amount of CO2 they can release into the atmosphere for free (though this amount is less every year), and if they need to release more, they can go to the market and buy those rights through an auction. .
As SendeCO2 CEO Ismael Romeo explains, there are several factors that explain the rise in prices that caused CO2 to exceed 100 euros at the beginning of the month: speculation in this market, while considering these rights a safe value to invest in, as their prices will hardly fall in the coming years; Although the purchases are accelerating as it is close to April 30, which corresponds to the last year, when the emission rights should be delivered, and therefore, as this date approaches, new tax at the border It will penalize the import of polluting products approved by Europe at the end of December.
But the trend is not new. In January 2018 these rights were paid at 4 euros per ton; increased to 23 euros in 2019; It reached 48 euros in 2021 and currently stands at an average of 90 euros per MWh. And it’s not predictable that there will be a U-turn becausethe system is designed to keep supply more scarce each year“, says José María García Berrendero, head for Spain and Portugal at Vertis, via email. “The drop in supply can only be offset by an equal drop in demand if the price increases significantly to reduce emissions. So while there is volatility, the system will remain tight for the foreseeable future and we can expect new all-time highs.”
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A study by professors Ángel Arcos-Vargas, Fernando Núñez Hernández and Juan Antonio Ballesteros Gallardo from the University of Seville, analyzing the specific situation of the Spanish market, concludes that “the carbon price has increased by 10, 20 or 30 euros per tonne”. respectively why 1.8 percent, 4.2 percent and 5.3 percent increases electricity price (Based on 2018 data), the negative impact on emissions is relatively small.”
According to energy expert and Menta Energía consultant Francisco Valverde, in a “standard” combined cycle proposal of 125 euros (gas-burning power plants), the cost of gas is about 80 euros, about 34 euros CO2 and the rest (11 euros), margins, salaries or maintenance-related costs. In the coal offer, the fuel is less available, but the emissions are doubling and that’s it, withdrawal of such technologies from the market In recent years.
The government tried to stop this CO2 contamination of electricity prices with a bill in the spring of 2021 that cuts excess revenue from nuclear and hydraulic power plants, which are not penalized for this cost (because they don’t pollute), but receive the compensation they produce. Norm continued the same philosophy that was approved months later (in September of the same year). cut unexpected profits for gas, it has a structural nature only in the case of CO2, while the interruption in gas is considered to have a conditional nature. At the end of June last year, the Ecological Transition Commission restarted the process, but stopped it a week later. It has since been in submission stage but undated, according to sources from said commission.