Regulatory intervention is urgently needed to control prices in the wholesale electricity market, EVIKEN, the Association of Industrial Energy Consumers, has noted in a letter forwarded to RAE, the Regulatory Authority for Energy.

Price-control intervention in Greece’s electricity market is needed as, besides the extraordinary conditions, the market is also pressured by a series of pending revisions, EVIKEN noted.

Balancing market redistribution has yet to be carried out, while the RES sector must still take on full balancing responsibility and, in addition, bilateral contracts need to be established with natural gas-fueled power stations, the association noted.

EVIKEN reiterated that specific strategies being pursued in the supply market are resulting in a full transfer of wholesale market price risk to retail tariffs.

This, combined with the absence of a futures market and the reluctance of producers, including power utility PPC, to offer a minimum percentage of their production portfolio through bilateral contracts – all in the absence of basic competition – results in all energy production being traded through the energy exchange, whose prices are now being formed by producers without any risk entailed, EVIKEN noted.