The president of the Spanish Association of the Electricity Industry (Unesa), Eduardo Montes, met with European officials in Brussels to discuss the tariff deficit problem and to tell them its cause is premiums to solar energy.
Specifically, Montes met on Friday with the European Commission Director-General for Energy, Philip Lowe, as well as with Carlos Martinez Mongay the Competition Commissioner Head of Cabinet, and senior representatives of the Directorate General for Economic and Financial Affairs. In a statement, Unesa informs that the meetings’ purpose was to address the “serious problem” of the tariff deficit, “caused mainly by the huge premiums that the solar technologies are granted.”
“The disproportionate increase in subsidies to these energies not only explains the increase of the tariff deficit in recent years, but also causes the price paid by Spanish consumers to become increasingly high,” the association says.
Montes also informed European authorities of the recent Supreme Court decisions rejecting the claims of the photovoltaic sector in Spain, considering that “premiums to these energies can be modified since the economic circumstances of the country have been altered and following the substantial tariff deficit increase “says Unesa.
For the association, as happens to the Spanish companies which are subject to the ebb and flow of free markets and are obliged to make big sacrifices because of the economic situation in the country, companies that have decided not to take the market risks by benefitting from a regulated tariff, such as solar companies, have to bear the regulatory changes as a result of the economic situation.
Unesa reminds that there are companies that are offering photovoltaic plants with no premiums and says that Montes “has clarified some misunderstandings” included in the working paper of the European Commission, with recommendations to the Council for the National Reform and Stability Programs for Spain, 2012.
In particular, he referred to the “confusion” about where the tariff deficit generates, as this electric debt has nothing to do with the price of energy, but “is caused exclusively by the difference between income and regulated costs “.
” The most important regulated cost is that arising from by subsidies to the special regime, while other concepts such as the distribution receive the lowest remuneration in Europe,” says Unesa.
In addition, the Spanish electricity market is one of the most efficient, since the number of agents has grown from four to over ten and offers one of the lowest prices in the EU.
