A RAE (Regulatory Authority for Energy) hearing originally scheduled for today, summoning the main power utility PPC to offer explanations concerning delayed money transfers, to the power utility, of PPC customer electricity bill payments made at ELTA (Hellenic Post) outlets, has been postponed for July 3 following a request made by PPC.

RAE is conducting an investigation to determine whether these transfer delays are being deliberately orchestrated by the two utilities in order to support competitive pricing policies offered by ELTA, now also operating as an electricity supplier.

It is suspected PPC may be colluding with ELTA so that the latter can provide further competition against independent power suppliers seeking retail market share gains.

RAE wants to be informed by PPC on the action it has taken since May 7, when the authority forwarded a letter to all electricity suppliers requesting detailed updates, especially from PPC, on ELTA’s payment transfer delays. PPC has yet to deliver on RAE demands, sources believe.

Rather than demand all PPC electricity bill payment records from ELTA to determine the status of PPC electricity bills paid by customers at the postal company’s outlets, the power utility has instead been summoning customers to its offices for presentations of receipts issued at the ELTA outlets as proof. Otherwise, PPC customers face the risk of being double-billed and being deprived of a 15 percent discount offered by the power utility to punctual customers.

ELTA has forwarded transaction details requested by RAE but it remains to be seen if this information will suffice to answer the authority’s questions.

Independent suppliers have also been summoned by RAE as part of the ongoing investigation. They have been asked to provide additional information by the end of July.