In 2021, the Government passed a bill encouraging major changes to electricity system costs. reduce electricity bill permanently, but in return, increase in fuel and natural gas prices. The energy crisis caused an earthquake that sent all energy prices to historic highs, and the operation of this rule in parliament was paralyzed and still frozen in 2022 in order to prevent new increases in fuel and natural gas.
The executive branch has not forgotten this law and continues to defend its purposes and how it was designed, but it does not currently intend to revive it and will continue to delay the reactivation of processing In the courts. “There is still uncertainty about the development of energy prices, so it does not seem like the time to act on this immediately,” said Teresa Ribera, vice president and minister for the Ecological Transition, at the Nueva Economía briefing this Wednesday. breakfast.Forum. “But it’s such a thing “We’re going to have to pick up at some point.” warned.
The rule hidden in a drawer, National Fund for Sustainability of the Electricity System (FNSSE) So the electric bill stops covering the entire charging cost of regulated renewables and also passes some of that bill on to oil and gas companies.
Who pays for regulated renewable energy sources?
currently costs previous one’s fee renewable energy regulated, this year approximately 4.5 billion, is fully reflected in the electricity bill. The government’s goal in creating this ‘green fund’ was to extend this cost to oil and gas companies. In other words, some of that million-dollar burden will be eliminated and the electricity bill will decrease, but at the same time, some of it will be reflected in the fuel and natural gas bill.
Various attempts to force passage of the law in Congress coincided with tensions in energy markets and the US Government’s implementation of this law. social shields to prevent the impact of sharp increases in fuel and gas bills on homes and businesses. Therefore, the Executive understood that it would be counterproductive to transfer new costs to fuel and gas at a time when extraordinary measures were being taken to reduce the price of these very energy products, costing millions in public accounts.
“We had the misfortune that this signal, which I believe was strong and interesting, coincided with the beginning of its processing in Parliament with the invasion of Ukraine and the absolutely crazy growth of gas prices on international markets,” Ribera said. , later noted as follows: “consumer protection” priority.
According to the government’s estimates at the time, the introduction of FNSSE would serve to save the electricity system from the cost of 663 million euros, which would have been transferred to the state. oil and gas companies, and they would pass this on to their customers. In parallel, the processing of another bill aimed at reducing the income of electric companies from CO2 that they do not emit was approved and then paralyzed. nuclear, hydroelectric and wind This will serve to cut the companies’ revenues and transfer 483 million Euros to the electricity system accounts. In total, between the two new standards there will be an extra $1,140 million that will no longer be reflected in the electric bill.
Complaints from big industry
The creation of the new renewable fund has put major industry in a state of war. A dozen employers’ associations from different industrial sectors warned that the implementation of the FNSSE would mean a multi-billion-dollar blow to the sector and that the measure came at the “worst time” – in the midst of the energy crisis and its rapid escalation. energy costs.
Bosses Anfac and Sernauto (automotive), AOP (oil and refining), Aspapel (paper), Feique (chemistry and pharmaceuticals), Fiab (food and beverage), Oficemen (cement), Primigea (mineral raw materials) and Unesid (steel). They have joined together to demand that the government and opposition political parties paralyze the operation of the rule to prevent the distribution of renewable energy costs in gas and fuels from having negative consequences on industrial companies.
Major industry applauded the partial exclusion of renewable energy costs from the electricity bill, but demanded that this not be done at the expense of industrial competitiveness. Business associations have therefore proposed to completely transfer the regulated renewable energy fee to the public, which bears the cost of the legally guaranteed fee for these green facilities. General Government Budgets (PGE) increasingly.