The pricing policy being practiced by PPC, the Public Power Corporation, for Greece’s energy-intensive industry threatens to drive the country’s sector to the ground, SEV (Hellenic Association of Industrialists) president Theodoros Fessas has warned in a letter to the corporation.
Through the letter, serving as a manifesto for the entire industrial sector’s support for a fully liberalized electricity market and PPC’s role within such a context, the SEV head takes an emphatic position on the conflicting views dividing the industrial sector and PPC.
Fessas noted that the PPC cannot negotiate on a “take it or leave it” basis with industrialists on its pricing policy. The SEV head also commented on the cost level that a modern and productive PPC should be operating at, adding that it needs to be reflected by the corporation’s pricing policy.
PPC’s pricing policy must take into account lower operating costs being enjoyed by the corporation as a result of regulatory changes that have led to a lower-cost CAT (Capacity Availability Tickets) system and other savings, including those offered by the international market’s plunge in crude oil prices, and, by extension, natural gas price levels.
Fessas pointed out that greater felexibility is required in negotiations between PPC and major-scale industrial consumers, who must be dealt with individually, based on their unique industrial profiles, rather than collectively.
SEV believes that PPC’s pricing policy should also be determined by supplier-consumer ties, and not just regulations, including EU directives, Fessas pointed out in the letter.