Government-injected aid to bring down regulated gas ratio They broke the market and within a few months caused more than a million customers to switch to subsidized rates. With the quarterly revision of the prices now appliedlast resort fees (TUR) executive makes an announcement average 2.89% discount As of July 1 and over the next quarter, for millions of homes and a shared ratio of up to 5.7% for centrally heated neighborhood communities.
The Official State Gazette (BOE) publishes the decision of the Ministry of Ecological Transition this Thursday, with the new values in the TUR calculation formula resulting from the decrease in gas prices and the decision taken by the State General Budget (PGE), taking extraordinary measures to limit the impact of the war in Ukraine in October 2022 debt accumulated with the industry.
According to the government, it has since implemented measures to contain price as early as 2021, with households covered by the TUR saving an average of 60 to 180 euros depending on their consumption, and SMEs saving more than 460 euros. TUR is a regulated rate applicable to any consumer connected to natural gas networks consuming less than 50,000 kWh per year, the price of which is reviewed quarterly by the Government and currently offers a 40% discount thanks to its limitation. maximum increases.
Discounts based on consumption
According to the calculations of the executive, For individual consumers, TUR will offer an average annual discount of 2.89% this July 1varies depending on customer type and consumption. For a customer with TUR 1 (kitchen and sanitary hot water), this means a 2.32% reduction in their annual bill including taxes; For users with TUR 2 (kitchen, domestic hot water and heating), the decrease was 2.79%; and TUR 3 (SME) customers will have a 3.01% discount on their annual bills. in case of Neighborhood TUR reserved for centrally heated neighborhood communities, discount will range from 4% to 5.7% depends on consumption.
The million-dollar aid plan announced by the government in October has snowballed requests for contract changes to regulated rates. In just six months, more than a million customers changed their contract to have a regulated gas tariff. From 1.58 million TUR users in September to 2.66 million at the end of March. In the case of the TUR neighborhood, 5,500 residential communities have been received since its establishment in October, well below expectations.
TURs are reviewed quarterly, on the 1st of January, April, July and October. raw material cost is experiencing an upward or downward change of more than 2% compared to the previous quarter, which is included in the calculation formula. However, the Executive, which limited the increases that can be applied from October 2021 from the first stages of the energy crisis to a maximum of 15% of the raw material cost, stated that the measure will be continued until the end of this. year.
In parallel, the Government has a loan of 3,000 million euros (which can be expanded if necessary) with public money to bridge the gap in gas system accounts that this cap on rate increases for individual customers can create (TUR 1, TUR 2 and TUR 3, by annual consumption) and the new rate for centrally heated neighborhood communities (neighborhood TUR). Currently, according to the Ministry itself, 631 million have already been paid out to the four major gas companies that have been forced to offer the regulated rate (Naturgy, Iberdrola, Endesa and Totalenergies) to close the gap and offset the cost of anti-crisis measures.
Aid disrupts the market
Government aid to lower the natural gas bills of millions of homes has caused a commercial shock. Subsidies serve reduce customer invoices by 40% regulated gas tariffs and a historic commercial comeback are recorded with a large customer transfer. The four major energy groups with regulated tariffs added more than one million new customers to their last resort distributors within six months.
Despite the massive transfer, the number of customers purchasing gas tariffs on the free market is still much higher, even though it is more expensive and has seen strong increases in the last winter months. Right now, approximately 5.6 million users remained in the free market. In other words, only 30% of all users have the tariff protected against strong increases, as confirmed by the price comparator of the National Markets and Competition Commission (CNMC), which is currently cheaper than all free market tariffs.