Independent electricity suppliers already active in Greece’s electricity market, two industrial enterprises, as well as ELTA (Hellenic Post) are registered to take part in tomorrow’s first ever NOME auction, arriving to provide third parties with access to main power utility PPC’s low-cost lignite and hydropower sources as a measure to help break the utility’s market dominance and meet bailout-required targets concerning its market share.

A total of 460 MW will be offered at the inauguaral auction session, organized by LAGIE, the Electricity Market Operator.

Besides the independent electricity suppliers, which have now captured close to 12 percent of Greece’s retail electricity market, according to official data for September, the other NOME auction participants are Interbeton and Wiener, a member of the Viohalco metal processing corporate group – both belonging to the industrial sector – Novaera, a member of the Copelouzos group, which has shown recent interest in the retail electricity market, and ELTA.

The full list is: Elpedison, the Greek Environmental & Energy Network, Interbeton, Novaera Energy, NRG Trading House, Protergia, Protergia-Thermoelectric, Volterra, Watt and Volt, Wiener, ELTA and Heron.

Participants will need to submit letters of guarantee worth 451,758.50 euros to be able to take part in tomorrow’s auction procedure, scheduled to start at midday. A Yankee Auction system will be applied. A starting price of 37.37 euros per MWh has been set. Buyers will need to make deposit payments covering 3 percent of order amounts by October 31.

PPC needs to reduce its market share to less than 50 percent by the end of 2019.