The financial burden of an expected hike to the latest annual Public Service Compensation (YKO) charge, implemented to support the cost of supplying electricity to high-cost geographical regions, will be spread out over at least two years for consumers.

The latest charge is expected to take effect September. However, details such as the precise amount of the YKO increase, and the way this charge will be distributed to consumers, households, merchants, and industries, remain unknown at this stage.

The Ministry of Environment, Energy & Climate Change, which was recently updated by RAE, the Regulatory Authority for Energy, on the latest YKO figure that will need to be imposed on consumer power bills, is currently working on an amendment headed for summer-session ratification in Parliament, ahead of its prospective implementation in autumn.

This comes as a slight delay to demands set by the country’s creditor representatives, or troika, for the measure’s introduction on July 1.

Two weeks ago, RAE announced, through the government gazette, that the YKO charge for 2012 and 2013 would need to reach a total of 1.6 billion euro.

According to sources, officials consider most of this amount covered but are examining ways to cover between 260 and 300 million euro of the 1.6-billion euro figure. Consumers will need to directly cover a 1.1-billion euro proportion of this amount, sources said. However, at this stage, it remains unknown what this amount will mean in terms of actual rises to power bills, on an individual basis.

EBIKEN, the country’s Industrial Consumers Association, announced yesterday that it was bracing for a 180-million euro increase, compared to 2013, to be imposed on the industrial sector. On average, this would constitute an increase of about 25%. Industrialists, according EBKEN, consider the imminent YKO rises for the sector as being excessive, and are pushing for a reduction to a level of 2.5 euro per megawatt hour from 4.14 euro per megawatt hour.