RAE, the Regulatory Authority for Energy, is working on an alternative plan to replace the existing RES-supporting supplier surcharge at the beginning of 2019. LAGIE, the Electricity Market Operator, is concurrently working on another plan.
According to energypress sources, RAE officials believe the basic principles behind the supplier surcharge – which support that electricity suppliers should pay their share of the RES production injected into the system as they benefit from this output and it reduces the System Marginal Price (SMP) – should be maintained.
A decision delivered by the Council of State, Greece’s Supreme Administrative Court, considers this as an integral part of the overall energy cost, not a surcharge, meaning consumers should not be responsible for covering its cost.
RAE is processing related data since the implementation of the supplier surcharge in an effort to shape a model that may determine the supplier surcharge level based on consumption and RES contribution levels. Such an approach would make surcharge levels more predictable and consistent for suppliers.
The LAGIE plan being worked on entails the issuance of green certificates by the operator instead of RES producers, as is the case at present. These would be utilized to generate revenues for the RES special account.
Based on this plan, all electricity suppliers would need to buy specific amounts of green certificates, based on their respective market shares. These guarantees would then be auctioned at the energy exchange. Minimum limits would be set at the auctions. Environmental commodities will be one of three commodities to be traded on the prospective energy exchange.
The country’s lender representatives oppose the supplier surcharge revision plans and are pressuring for its abolishment. They have proposed full coverage of the RES special account amounts to be required as a result of the supplier surcharge’s abolishment through an increase of the RES-supporting ETMEAR surcharge imposed on electricity bills. This amount could range between 170 and 200 million euros for 2018.