Main power utility PPC officials, responding to the far higher than expected electricity prices reached at Wednesday’s NOME auction, are claiming independent suppliers woud not have purchased electricity amounts at these levels if they were not favorable.

A drastically increased electricity amount of 717 MWh/h offered at the midweek auction, the final session for the year, was not enough to prevent a bidding war among the participants, who pushed for purchases, presumably in anticipation of even higher electricity prices this coming winter. Prices reached as high as 45.20 euros per MWh/h at the auction.

PPC officials claimed that nobody makes purchases unless these are favorable, adding that Wednesday’s auction levels were between 17 and 20 percent lower than the supply price paid by the utility.

In reality, the auction’s result, seen as crucial for retail electricity market developments in 2018, severely dampens, if not makes impossible, the prospect of any spectacular market share shifts in the foreseeable future as it leaves independent suppliers with insufficient profit-margin leeway to pursue aggressive pricing policies.

NOME auctions were introduced to offer independent suppliers access to PPC’s lower-cost lignite and hydropower sources.