A year ago, the government launched a system to control the extraordinary profits of electricity companies in order to abusively increase their revenues, taking advantage of the spiral of price increases brought on by the then-near-new energy crisis. Aim prevent energy companies from selling nuclear, hydro and some of the electricity they generate renewable at exorbitant market prices Fast-rising wholesale due to the price of natural gas and CO2 rights, costs that these technologies do not support.
The mechanism, which has been activated by the government and has since been reviewed and modified on several occasions, is nuclear, hydraulic and renewable. refund outstanding revenue from signed contracts above the maximum marked price of 67 euros per megawatt hour (MWh) this was the barrier between profiting from the crisis and not doing so, according to the Government’s calculations.
Since this deduction system is enabled, electricity companies had to give back a total of 366.2 million euros According to official data from EL PERIÓDICO DE ESPAÑA, a newspaper that is part of the Prensa Ibérica group, it was made from September 2021 to July 2022, corresponding to revenue adjustments, due to the conclusion of contracts above the maximum electricity price set by the Government.
this National Markets and Competition Commission (CNMC), Responsible for reconciling the industry’s costs and expenses, it revealed that the reduction in revenue between September and December of last year amounted to 131.8m euros, but has not publicly disclosed the impact of cuts for energetic groups since then. This year, companies continued to bring extra revenue to the electricity system, reaching 234.4 million between January and July, according to official documents this newspaper referenced and not published by the supervisory body.
Last September, the government launched the system, which forces some of the nuclear, hydroelectric and renewable energy sources to generate extraordinary income. Later, the Executive took advantage of it. macro decree Anti-crisis measures due to the war in Ukraine to review the system to reduce additional revenue and expand it to cover all contracts signed at high prices (over 67 Euros per MWh). In addition, the so-called big power companies “heavenly benefits” (unexpected gains) along the chain of contracts between companies in the same group, up to the transfer of inflated prices to the final customer.
ELECTRIC REJECTS EXTRA BENEFITS
Electricity companies deny the existence of these extra benefits and emphasize that they sell all their production under bilateral contracts at prices much lower than the wholesale market price. A full turnaround from the electricity sector is underlined. single Last year’s 366m euros shows that companies do not benefit from wholesale market prices. The government’s initial estimate was to collect 2,600 million euros in six months with this mechanism. (An estimate generated by the initial deduction system and not updated by the Government with subsequent regulatory changes).
The government opposes the use of a revenue reduction system to help companies control their prices.because it allows electricity companies to sign all new contracts and updates for a maximum of 67 Euros per MWh to avoid the return of extra income.
In parallel, the Administrator has initiated or is preparing other measures to avoid extra benefits and lower the electricity price. On the one hand, it became operational in June. Iberian exceptionmechanism that creates an upper bound on the price of the gas used to produce the gas to lower the price of the gas. electricity wholesale market by preventing the prices of other technologies from being polluted by rising gas prices. On the other hand, the Administration has designed a special tax for large electricity companies so that although the Government will change the future tribute design, they will contribute a portion of their income (1.2% of their bills) to finance support measures for families and companies. To adapt to the tax decided by the member states of the European Union.