big electric They were demanding legal regulations from the government. billion-dollar investments in electricity networks, Its modernization and expansion is vital to integrate the boom in new renewable energies. The government has been resisting increasing the fees that companies receive for these investments and reflected in the electricity bill to prevent further increases, but it is now not ruling out slight increases as long as their impact on customers through the electricity bill is limited. .
Vice President and Minister for Ecological Transition, Teresa Ribera has shown willingness to “slightly increase” the limit of investment in (managing) transport networks. Electrical Network) and distribution (mainly in the hands of big groups like me)bedrola, Endesa or Naturgy) as a way to encourage deployment and digitalization amid an avalanche of new renewable energy plants.
In his speech in front of dozens of businessmen at the forum Spain Investors Day (including Endesa’s top executives José Bogas; Naturgy’s Francisco Reynés and Red Eléctrica’s Beatriz Corredor) Ribera warned that companies should not expect huge increases in wages in return for their investments in networks, which he did not show. He is also ready to bring forward the next review, scheduled for 2026.
But in his statements to the press, the vice president opened the door to improvements in the companies’ fees, conditional on them not having a significant impact on the electricity costs of homes and companies.
“Network owners are demanding more fees (…) But increasing fees would have a detrimental effect on consumers. You must be careful. and amounts [que se repercutan a la factura eléctrica] “These need to be acceptable to all consumers,” he warned. “Current legislation places a limit on investments in new networks to ensure that their costs are bearable depending on the development of GDP and CPI. We think this limit could probably be raised slightly. However, we try to maintain the balance between the need to expand the networks and the cost that may be reflected in the invoice.
The electricity transportation and distribution networks business is a regulated business in which companies invest in their infrastructure up to a limit determined by law and are charged an access fee charged on the electricity bill. Currently, a maximum investment limit of 0.65% of GDP applies to Red Eléctrica (without taking into account international interconnection costs), while the limit for distributors is 0.13% of GDP. Companies, especially large electricity companies, are demanding that these investment limits be increased to speed up the installation and modernization of their networks and at the same time increase the fees they receive.
“The more compensation network owners want, the better. And the consumer wants the part of his bill associated with this fee to be as small as possible so that the price does not decrease. That’s the balance we’re trying to maintain,” Ribera stressed, stressing that Spain is “taking the chance” to build new networks over the next five or seven years, promote the energy transition with more renewable energy and make the most of energy investment.
In recent years the Government has mobilized European funds to finance improvements to electricity networks without them being counted as part of the statutory investment limits and preventing their transfer to the consumer through the bill. The administration allocated 931 million euros from the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan (PRTR) to pay for part of the work required to expand the networks and update the planning of high voltage infrastructures, and also allocated 525 million euros for financing. digitalization of networks.