How industrialists respond to the National Energy and Climate Plan

Letter to the Minister of Energy, Theodoros Skylakis sent the Association of Industrial Energy Consumers ( ) in relation to the National Plan on Climate and Climate. Specifically, in its letter to Minister Skylakis, EVIKEN states that “it is obvious that our attention focuses on the points of the National Plan, which refer to issues that concern and affect the international competitiveness of the domestic industry, as well as on the need to change the market model, so that the low price of RES passes to energy-intensive industries, as part of the planned green transition.” ‘In particular we believe that the text to be consulted has reduced the impact of the implementation of the measures, such as CBAM and the new regulatory changes in the ESREC by the gradual abolition of free rights to industry by 2035. Measures designed to start as early as 2026 at European level, which will significantly affect the competitiveness of industry, on the one hand, and will bring about a significant price increase in a number of industrial products, as we will analyse in a specific chapter,” stresses EVIKEN. In the letter industrialists say they have repeatedly pointed out that the Greek electricity market has structural characteristics of oligopoly, as only 4 vertically integrated players participate, resulting in the complete lack of conditions of development of even minimum competition. They point out that “since wholesale market prices are transferred directly to ordinary consumers’ tariffs (first with the adjustment clause, today with green and yellow tariffs and tomorrow with orange), we easily conclude that producers have no risk of launching prices on the wholesale market when their conditions allow them to. Because the same players as suppliers simply pass any high market prices directly into their retail tariffs, without damage. It was therefore expected to see the launch of prices up to EUR 946/MWH, due to the high demand for exports to Bulgaria and Romania during peak hours after sundown (19.00 – 23.00) from July 7 until today. With the obvious result of the considerable burden on industries. This shows that the claim made by the operators that the industries do not need to be subsidised due to high prices because they can make bilateral contracts is not robust, as the long-term contracts offered on the market (PRAs) mainly with PBs, are not in any way a tool for the industries suitable to offset the risk from the high wholesale market prices observed at peak times. Nor in the hours of sunshine, however, as the months of low demand are cannibalising market prices below the agreed price of the RRA. Unless the political leadership gives the priority needed and finally exerts political pressure on Brussels to approve the Green Pool mechanism, which provides for the adaptation of the RES operating profile to the pooled profile of industry demand. This shows the need for structural changes in the functioning of wholesale trade. With a first change in the abolition of the compulsory market model, on the basis of which all energy is now compulsory on the stock exchange. It is a market through which consumers can benefit from the cheap energy of RES and suppliers and large consumers can offset the risk of price changes, regardless of our well-known spot market operating with marginal pricing. Moreover, measures to support energy-intensive industries, similar to Italy’s proposal, could be considered. This information provides for the allocation to energy-intensive industries through 20 TWh electricity supply auctions for the next three years at a price of EUR 60/MWh through financial dispute contracts (cfd) with a corresponding commitment by those industries to develop RES projects, the energy they will then sell on the wholesale market at the price of EUR 60/ MWh. Clearly, electricity prices in our country will be very difficult to compete with without structural changes in the current market model to the extent that they favour the deelectrication of industry and the economy in general. Referring to the objective of participation of RES in power generation at 77% in 2030 we consider that it will cause a major problem with the stability of the system for long periods, despite any development of storage systems This is because we estimate that the total power of the PGs in 2030 may be close to 19 GW on the basis of the number of terms of connection for RES projects, which have been given and the observed rates of implementation of the projects. It will certainly be much higher than 13.5 GW mentioned in the text. In particular, already by the end of August, tax rates, projects of 2.7 GW FB, up to 1MW, were blocked, as well as were approved with priority 2.4 GW, mainly FB, in the context of the industrial RRAs. We also consider that your calculations, for at least a small marginal increase in Demand by 2030, will not succeed, let alone when they are based on the assumption of increasing the UN in transport and hydrogen production. The further increase in RES in the mixture will lead to massive discharges of the electricity generated by RES, as the total energy generated will far exceed demand to the extent that any storage projects will not be able to smooth the problem. And over a storage size the problem will simply shift to other hours in the day. In conclusion, we note that over the last few months we have seen that which exports of green energy from RES are minimal and are made at very low prices. On the other hand, the increase in exports observed, particularly in the last two months, concerns exports of electricity produced by units of gas or lignite, mainly in peak hours at sundown.’