Electricity suppliers seeking low-voltage market share gains

Mobile telephone company Cosmote, which controls a vast retail network of Germanos electronic goods outlets around Greece, has become the focus of attention of the bigger alternative electricity suppliers maneuvering for a partnership that would tremendously boost their share of the local retail electricity market.

Other companies maintaining extensive retail networks such as Vodafone, the lottery company OPAP, and Public electrical appliance stores, have also been approached – to a lesser extent, however – by alternative electricity suppliers seeking partnerships that could help establish them in the local retail electricity market, now that main power utility PPC must surrender a large chunk.

As part of the bailout agreement, PPC, which currently controls well over 90 percent of Greece’s electricity market, must gradually reduce its share to 50 percent by 2020.

According to energypress sources, no partnership agreements have yet been reached by alternative electricity suppliers and firms possessing retail networks. However, certain suppliers and some of the market’s more solid telesales companies have struck deals.

Indicative of the wider interest developing for Greece’s retail electricity market, foreign funds have also begun examining investment prospects.

Ongoing advertising campaigns launched by alternative electricity suppliers are targeting low-voltage consumers – households and shops.

At this stage, it appears that the intensified efforts of alternative suppliers to move into the retail electricity market are producing results. A forecast predicting PPC would surrender 7 percent of its market share by the end of this year seems likely to be achieved.

At present, besides PPC, seven more electricity suppliers operate in the Greek market. Three of these, Heron, Elpedison, and Protergia, all vertically integrated, are making the biggest market share gains. The other four, Watt + Volt, Green, Voltera, and NRG, now share over one percent of the retail electricity market.