The big industry proposes to Ribera a moratorium on the payment of CO ₂ rights

The meteoric rise in energy prices continues to put pressure on the Government to look for alternative ways of financing with which to lower the bill of citizens and mass consumption companies. The latter have put on the table of the Ministry for the Ecological Transition headed by Teresa Ribera a new proposal to weather the escalation in the wholesale market. It is a moratorium on the payment of _CO2 emission rights, a fee collected by the Ministry of Finance and which, at the end of last year, meant an injection of more than 2,200 million euros for the public coffers.

The cost of allowances has been installed at maximum levels since 2021. This trajectory entails an abrupt increase in costs for installations that emit _CO2 (mainly gas and coal) and that must pay the ‘green tax’ that taxes _CO2 and greenhouse gas emissions. This tax puts pressure on prices in the wholesale market (pool in the jargon of the sector) and ends up infecting the electricity bill of consumers.

If in 2020 the average annual price of the ton of _CO2 was below 25 euros, last year it broke all forecasts by registering an annual average of 53.55 euros / ton, reaching a maximum peak of more than 79 euros in December, according to data compiled by SendeCO2, a company specialized in the advice and sale of emission rights.

With this price scenario, combined cycles, which burn gas to produce energy, would be facing an extra cost of up to 30 euros per megawatt produced per hour. The figure is even higher in the case of coal. Given that in Spain the price of the MW is marked by the latest technology to enter the pool, in the hours when this role corresponds to gas or coal, the consumer ends up paying the effect of the _co2 escalation. The large industry, which accounts for more than 60% of the total gas demand in our country, has put on the table of Ribera the possibility of approving a moratorium on _CO2 rights.

It remains to be seen if Ecological Transition takes note of this proposal, as it is a cape for the gas-intensive industry, something that squeaks with the green discipline of the ministry. Everything indicates that the Ministry of Finance could be suspicious of the initiative, given that the moratorium would force the portfolio led by María Jesús Montero to renounce, at least temporarily, a multimillion-dollar item, since the upward spiral of the price of CO₂ has catapulted the State’s collection for this concept to record levels.

The Treasury collected more than 2,246 million in 2021 for _CO2 emission rights, almost double that of the previous year, when it entered 1,156 million

The Government has gone from entering 1,156 million euros in 2020 thanks to the auctions of emission rights, to pocketing more than 2,246 million in 2021, according to the latest budget execution report updated by the Ministry of Finance. The sector expects that the collection at the end of 2021 will be even higher, since the last available report corresponds to the month of November, so the tables of the department that Montero pilots have not yet computed the peak experienced by _CO2 last December.

That ‘extra’ income of more than 1,000 million could be too small next to the forecasts of the emission rights market for this year. Russia’s military offensive in Ukraine has sent gas and hydrocarbon prices soaring to record levels, which, in turn, have infected electricity bills. According to Data from SendeCO2, so far this year, the average price of emission rights exceeds 84 euros. Last February, when Moscow gave the order to invade Ukraine, the monthly cost of a ton of _CO2 was 90.79 euros, more than triple that of two years ago.

The cape that supposes for the public coffers to the escalation of _co2 is proportional to the broken that this rise opens to the accounts of the large industrial groups of our country. Acerinox, ArcelorMittal or Celsa, to name just a few, have been forced to curb their activity in recent days due to the lack of control of energy prices. That is why the different employers of the electro-intensive giants and the companies of large gas consumption have suggested by official means to Vice President Ribera to implement the aforementioned moratorium, at least, until the disarray of the pool is alleviated.

Source: La Información