Industrial group wants PPC barred from ‘disruption’ plan auctions

EVIKEN, the Association of Industrial Energy Consumers, has forwarded a letter to leading local energy-sector authorities calling for main power utility PPC to be excluded from the “disruption management” plan’s auctions, protesting that the utility’s participation is having major negative impact on negotiations between PPC and industrial energy-intensive enterprises for individual tariff agreements.

Just days ago, PPC undermined the recently introduced “disruption management” plan’s second auction session by submitting extremely low offers intended to flatten the session, sparking protest by disgruntled energy-intensive industry officials.

The “disruption management” plan is intended to enable energy cost savings for major-scale industry in exchange for shifting energy usage to off-peak hours whenever required by the operator. If the plan fails to sufficiently reduce energy costs for industrial enterprises, then the latter can be expected to reassess their positions on the tariff negotiations with PPC.

It is believed that a number of major-scale industrial enterprises that have already signed new tariff agreements with PPC are reexamining their respective deals.

The EVIKEN letter calls for PPC’s exclusion from the “disruption management” plan’s auctions even if a ministerial decision needs to be signed to accomplish this. The association, in the letter, recalled recent remarks made by energy minister Panos Skourletis, who described the “disruption” plan as a tool to help offset the elimination of a 20 percent electricity discount offered to industrial consumers. The offer ended at the end of 2015.

The EVIKEN letter was sent to Skourletis, deputy industry minister Theodora Tzagri, RAE (Regulatory Authority for Energy) chairman Nikos Boulaxis, and PPC’s chief executive Manolis Panagiotakis.