Worth 1.1 billion euros, the government’s triple-dimensioned support package designed to help consumers deal with exorbitant energy prices is not negligible. The big question at this stage is how many more times will such support need to be offered to consumers in 2022?

Energy price projections are frightening as Russia’s war on Ukraine enters its fourth week. The political world will need to intervene and set market rules, as noted by Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis. Smaller EU member states with less fiscal leeway, such as Greece, face serious danger should the European Commission not intervene and offer a central European solution.

If the situation unfolds favorably and the war ends soon, wholesale electricity prices could average 100 euros per MWh in 2022, well below today’s level of 240.32 euros per MWh, but nearly double Greece’s pre-crisis wholesale electricity average of 55 euros per MWh.

At a wholesale electricity price average of 100 euros per MWh in 2022, the country’s annual electricity consumption, totaling 55 TWh, would cost 5.5 billion euros.

This figure is 2.2 billion euros more than the 3 billion euros, or so, for Greece’s pre-crisis annual electricity cost, resulting from a wholesale electricity average of 55 euros per MWh.

To put this additional 2.2 billion-euro amount for electricity into perspective, it is just below the 2.58 billion euros collected by the state in 2021 through ENFIA property tax.