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The unprecedented escalation of electric prices, as a consequence of the rise in the international price of gas and the market of CO2It affects all of Europe but not with the same intensity. The Iberian market (Spain and Portugal) has been setting higher prices in recent weeks compared to other European markets, especially Central Europe and the Nordic countries.
And for the Spanish electrointensive industry this mismatch makes a difference. According AEGE, the employers’ association that brings together companies in the sector, the energy cost differential has increased compared to its competitors in France and Germany. And that has a direct consequence: it reduces competitiveness.
“We are concerned about what is happening in the wholesale electricity market in these months. Our industries are very sensitive to their prices, but for the moment we are not affected because we have bought energy in the long term,” he explains to EL ESPAÑOL-Invertia Fernando Soto placeholder image, CEO of AEGE (Association of Companies with high energy consumption).
Electricity, more expensive in Spain
“However, the differential in energy prices with respect to our competitors has increased as the price of electricity increased. I attribute it to the fact that we are an energy island, we don’t have many interconnections and when there are coupled markets, the cheap generation of one market softens the more expensive one. “
Something that does not happen in Spain. In the 2019 report of Monitor Deloitte for AEGE, it was evidenced that the final electricity prices in Spain (average of 2017 and 2018) for the electrointensive industry (45 euros / MWh) were € 20 to 25 / MWh more expensive than those of its competitors in France and Germany, 50% due to the price difference in the electricity markets and 50% to the regulated costs and existing compensation in each country.
“Well now, if we pay 109 euros / MWh, France 45 euros / MWh and Germany 74 euros / MWh, much more difference”. In the first case more than double and, in the second, 25% more. “And all this despite having a Electrointensive Consumer Statute that supposedly it was going to reduce those differences “, adds Soto.
In the end, this means that the electrointensives in our country “assume more than 1,500 million euros of extra cost compared to our competitors. An amount that we cannot also allocate to improve plants or adapt them to the energy transition of industrial processes.”
Germany, a role model
AEGE is clear that the solution is to look at the German model. “I wish the same measures were applied, such as exemption from transport toll or at least the reduction by 80%, which would mean a reduction in the bill of 5 euros / MWh “.
Or also, “increase indirect CO2 offsets to the maximum“. Unlike France, which allocates 13 euros / MWh, or Germany, with 11.5 euros / MW,” in Spain we only receive between 6 and 8 euros / MWh. “
“I look forward to the support that German industry receives from your Government. A sector that provides stable, quality employment, that generates wealth in the area where it operates, and that is resilient to economic crises,” concludes Soto.
Hyperintensive consumer
Precisely this situation will be discussed today, Wednesday, in the Congress Committee on Industry, Commerce and Tourism. A Non-Law Proposal to support the hyperintensive industrial consumer in energy and high-efficiency cogeneration will be debated and voted on, as a proposal by the Popular Party.
There is also a section for high-efficiency cogeneration, gas and gas intensive industries.
The measures proposed by the PP include the expansion to 1,800 million euros of the allocation planned for the Spanish Reserve Fund for Guarantees of Electrointensive Entities (FERGEI) for the years 2022, 2023 and 2024.
And also eliminate the obligation to contract renewable energy to access the Spanish Reserve Fund for Guarantees of Electrointensive Entities (FERGEI), a necessary measure and included in the already approved Statute of the sector.
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Reference-www.elespanol.com