The light marks its third maximum this Saturday despite falling 2%

The average price of electricity in the wholesale market will stand this Saturday at 134.89 euros per megawatt hour (MWh), which represents a slight decrease of 2.04% compared to the 137.70 euros marked for this Friday [segundo máximo histórico]. This is the third most expensive price in the historical series, after the last two records recorded this week.

Although it falls for the second consecutive day, it is still well above the levels of last year and the 110.22 and 110.14 euros per megawatt hour established in the last two Saturdays. Specifically, the average price of electricity will triple tomorrow compared to the levels of the previous year (€43.97/MWh), according to forecasts by the market operator Omie.

According to Omie, electricity will move tomorrow in a range of between €106.30 and €152.27/MWh. The maximum peak (€152.27/MWh) will take place at 22.00, and the lowest cost (€106.3/MWh) will occur at 5.00 p.m.

Among other factors, the wholesale market is marked by the increase in the prices of CO2 and gas emission rights, which have been joined by the increase in demand due to high temperatures and a lower contribution of renewables.

In fact, gas continues its escalation and the average price of the Spanish hub until August 27 stood at €44.21/MWh, 21.2% higher than July and 381.2% higher compared to August 2020, according to the latest Market Price Bulletin of GasIndustrial. For its part, the ton of CO2 exceeded 56 euros in August, while in September it already reaches 60.75 euros [33,43 euros en enero], according to data from SendeCO2.

The year-on-year rise in energy in Spain reached 20.7% in July, a figure that was only exceeded by the United States (21.3%), Finland (23.8%) and, above all, Norway (50.4%), according to figures published on Thursday by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

Study group

The socialist and Unidas Podemos groups have registered in Congress a request to create a study commission on the price of electricity and the improvement of the electricity system.

It is a joint proposal of the two government partners, which comes after this Thursday Unidas Podemos, on its own initiative and without counting on the PSOE, registered a bill in Congress to request the creation of a public energy company.

The start-up of this company, which demands purple training and would assume the hydroelectric concessions that expire, is an initiative that the Executive has also stated that it is open to study, although in the short term the measures it proposes will be limited to taxation.

The new proposal that reaches the Lower House and that does bear the signatures of the two parties that make up the Executive asks for a non-permanent commission and intends to seek solutions to the tensions of the electricity market that are causing these increases in electricity, with “negative and serious consequences on a very significant part of the population and the economic fabric”.

The fundamental problem, they point out, is that these high prices “put the economies of families and small businesses in a situation of stress.” In addition, they point out that the approval this year of the Climate Change and Energy Transition law and the new EU legislative packages (“Fit for 55”) make it necessary to review the energy market “and an in-depth study” of the electricity sector.

The purpose of the commission will be to study the causes and consequences of the evolution of electricity prices in the wholesale market, especially in recent months, and to propose proposals to design an electricity system “that reconciles environmental sustainability with social justice and the competitiveness of the economy”.

The Bureau of congress also described on Wednesday an initiative of More Country to promote a commission of inquiry into the rise in the electricity bill, which they negotiated later to give it the form of a study commission and which had the approval of Ribera.

CHANGES IN THE REGULATED TARIFF

The third vice president and minister for the Ecological Transition, Teresa Ribera, showed at the beginning of August her willingness to modify the regulated tariff with the aim of reducing its dependence on the wholesale market and stabilizing the electricity bill, and this was confirmed on Monday in the Congress of Deputies.

According to Ribera, one of the lines of work to limit the variability of the PVPC is to “integrate in part a basket of more stable indicators” that allow maintaining more stable price ranges. He warned that “this greater security” will mean that part of the risk premium of reducing volatility is internalized. “You have to be cautious about what indicators are indexed and when this indexing occurs,” he said.

Another of the lines in which Ecological Transition works is to reduce the volume of energy that participates in the wholesale market, so that it becomes “a market of adjustments”.

Source: Five Days