Ministry mulling new cheaper power rate slots
Energy Ministry will overhaul the period of off-peak charges for electricity consumption
The Energy Ministry is putting the finishing touches to the shift of the off-peak charging for electricity consumption from the night to the daytime and those hours when renewable energy source output peaks thanks to photovoltaics and prices in the wholesale market are low.
The measure announced by Minister Thodoros Skylakakis since April will work alongside the effort to move demand to the low-price zones, which is becoming an urgent need in dealing with the imbalance of the system due to the oversupply of RES, a phenomenon that is leading to more and more increasing green energy cuts.
The first tool in this direction deployed by the ministry is the release on the market from January 2025 of “dynamic” orange-colored invoices with the possibility of hourly billing within 24 hours or even 15 minutes. By the end of the year, the ministry will evaluate whether it should extend the mandatory availability of green tariffs.
However, the prevailing opinion among the competent officials of the ministry is that “the green tariffs have achieved their goal, which was transparency and the strengthening of competition and that the market cannot move forward with regulated measures.”
At the moment, Skylakakis tells Kathimerini, “the dynamic orange tariffs and the transition from the night to the two-zone tariff” are being prioritized. As he explains, the nightly charge is a relic of a time when PPC provided it to boost demand at night and keep lignite units operating that were not easy to switch on and off. Now with RES, Greece has the cheapest electricity at noon when the photovoltaics are working, and on weekends, especially on Sundays.
“So it makes sense to move the demand to where there is a cheap price, so that the tariffs that the providers can give are lower,” emphasizes the minister.
The design in principle – as it has not yet been finalized – will involve a zone for weekdays between the hours of 10 a.m. and 3 p.m., possibly with changes per season as demand varies.
