Market officials, especially industrial sector electricity consumers, are eagerly awaiting for the cost-saving “disruption management” plan, signed by energy minister Panos Skourletis last Friday, to be published in the government gazette. However, the measure, to partially offset power utility PPC’s high-voltage tariff increases, will take at least one month, possibly even two, to be implemented.

A series of measures now need to be made by IPTO, the power grid operator, before the “disruption management” plan comes into being to enable energy cost savings for major-scale industry in exchange for shifting energy usage to off-peak hours whenever required by the operator.

IPTO must prepare auction details and a required mechanism and also establish a registry for participants.

Based on the experience of a similar procedure completed by LAGIE, the electricity market operator responsible for the country’s wholesale market, a period of up to two months may be needed before the “disruption management” plan’s mechanism becomes operational, while the support of a specialized company to establish database and software systems could be required.

As disclosed yesterday by energypress, no changes to an older pre-Syriza coalition “disruption management” plan, which had received European Commission approval, were made for the finalized plan just signed by Skourletis.

As a result, all photovoltaic system producers, except for the household sub-category, will contribute 3.6 percent of their total turnover to the “disruption management” plan, wind-energy facility operators will contribute 1.8 percent of turnover, and small-scale hydropower stations 0.8 percent of turnover.

Based on these percentage figures, a total of about 48 million euros is expected to be raised annually to fund the “disruption management” plan.