Ribera commissions a report to Competition to control the gas cap

The document finalized by the regulator highlights the virtues of the Iberian exception and tiptoes over the negative effects of a measure that still generates controversy

The Minister for the Ecological Transition, Teresa Ribera, expects a capotazo to the gas by the National Commission of Markets and Competition (CNMC). The energy vice-president commissioned the regulator to provide a supervisory report on the impact of the Iberian mechanism, which has been applied in Spain and Portugal since June 15. The document, already in the final stretch for publication, highlights the virtues of the Iberian exception and tiptoes over the negative effects of the measure promoted by the Government.

The latest version of the document has already been reviewed by the Regulatory Supervision Chamber of the CNMC, an area in close contact with the regulatory activity of Ecological Transition within the body chaired by Cani Fernández. Sources familiar with the report state that the CNMC has limited itself to addressing this task from a purely expository approach, without exploiting the critical eye that is assumed to the institution.

“More than a monitoring report, it is a description,” says one source. The report, therefore, will serve the department headed by Vice President Ribera to adduce an external and, clearly, favorable opinion of the Iberian ceiling in its future interventions in defense of the mechanism.

The result, according to the same sources, has been an extensive document that delves into the advantages of the limit by decree to the price of gas and ignores the list of contraindications of the aforementioned intervention of the electricity market. This measure, designed to prevent the contagion of the escalation of this fuel to the bill paid by consumers, has generated an angry debate, inside and outside national borders. Official sources of the ministry have limited themselves to recalling that the CNMC “has the supervision of the application of the mechanism from the beginning”.

Ecological Transition began to monitor the prices expected for each day in the European electricity markets shortly after the Iberian plan came into operation. Since then, the department has collected the difference in the average cost of the megawatt hour (MW / h) with and without adjustment, as well as the comparison with the price paid daily by other countries in the environment. Despite its efforts, the ministry has failed to silence the most critical voices.

THE IBERIAN CAP BENEFITS PORTUGAL

Recurrent attacks cloud the gas ceiling after four months in force, regardless of the fact that, after much reluctance, the European Union seems ready to extend its guidelines to all Member States. One of the most recurrent reproaches is the consideration that France and Portugal gain from the cross-border swap, by buying cheaper energy from Spain, where exports have grown at record levels.

The supervisor’s report concludes that, of the two neighbouring countries, it is Portugal that benefits most from the Iberian derogation. This observation, which hardly receives special attention from the supervisor, is not trivial, as it confirms that the Portuguese Government managed to scratch better conditions for its consumers than the Executive of Pedro Sánchez, within the framework of the tug of war between both partners to move forward with the Iberian ceiling.

Paradoxically, among the most recurrent criticisms is the extra cost that the mechanism implies for consumers, since they are the ones who pay the compensation between the real market price and the maximum price set by decree for ‘capped’ technologies (combined cycles and, for a few weeks, cogeneration plants). The consumer benefits in the final equation.

The ministry’s forecasts for this Tuesday, for example, marked a final price of 136.49 euros/MWh for Spanish consumers, of which 26.17 euros/MWh corresponded to the cost of the adjustment. The price without the Iberian exception would have been 155.39 euros. The President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, supports Teresa Ribera’s campaign in defense of the gas cap every time she is given the opportunity. In one of his last speeches in the Congress of Deputies, the leader of the Executive estimated at 2,800 million the savings of the Iberian exception for all consumers.

Sources in the sector point out that the data reported by the ministry, as well as the figures promulgated by the tenant of the Moncloa, are not having the expected effect. Precisely, because it is assumed as a party report. In this context, the CNMC report is seen in the regulator’s environment as a boost to the Government’s campaign to expose, by all means at its disposal, the benefits of the gas cap.

Source: El Mundo