Plan for reducing industrial energy costs
The Environment and Energy Ministry is trying to solve the conundrum of securing low electricity costs for energy-intensive industries without burdening Public Power Corporation.
Minister Kostas Skrekas’ objective is to make the most of the informal extension of negotiations between PPC and industries up until June, so as to use new instruments and measures that require the approval either of the European Commission or the national regulators in the battle to lower the energy costs.
In this context the ministry has served as an early notice to the Directorate General for Competition (DGComp) the proposal for a subsidy of 15 euros per megawatt-hour on the price of energy supplied to industry through bilateral contracts from producers of renewable energy.
At the same time, in cooperation with the Regulatory Authority for Energy, the Independent Power Transmission Operator (ADMIE) and the Hellenic Electricity Distribution Network Operator (HEDNO), the ministry is working on a plan to reduce the regulatory charges for industrial medium- and high-voltage consumers.
“We will exhaust all possibilities of reducing regulatory charges and every measure that may lead to a reduction in the cost of energy for Greek industry, like other countries do, in the context of the European framework,” Skrekas tells Kathimerini, acknowledging the need to support industry and at the same time PPC’s right to form its own commercial policy, taking into account the context of the market in which it operates.
The plan that the ministry notified Brussels about in early February, regarding green power purchase agreements, relies on the promotion of environmentally friendly energy along with the bolstering of industries that will use the bilateral contracts through a €15/MWh discount, an amount proposed to be covered by the EU recovery fund.
The Greek plan differs in many ways from a similar plan by Spain for the part-compensation of energy-intensive industries in the procurement of RES energy that the European Commission recently approved. Sources say that one of the questions Brussels has asked Athens is why Greece is not following the Spanish model.
