Feníe Energía denounces that the cap on gas distorts the market and punishes small marketers

MADRID, 26 May. (EUROPA PRESS) -

The independent marketer Feníe Energía has denounced this Thursday that the measure to cap the price of gas with which electricity is generated adopted both in Spain and in Portugal can distort the market, punish small marketers and thus reinforce the dominance of large companies electrical.

In a statement, the company defends the need for a mechanism to limit the "excessive price of gas" and thus reduce the amount of the electricity bill, but considers that the procedure established by the Government "generates a very high level of uncertainty" and "it will also seriously harm competition and, ultimately, consumers' ability to choose freely."

The new norm establishes that customers with a price associated with the wholesale market (both in the regulated market and in the free market) pay "practically all the gas compensation," Feníe argues.

"Due to the complexities of the mechanism, it is still not clear whether consumers with fixed-price contracts will be minimally affected or not. The main problem with this rule lies in the differentiation between these two types of customers, which will generate two adverse effects ", has added.

The marketer has also criticized that the price reduction that was expected to be achieved with this measure "is going to be less than expected" because the cost of gas compensation is paid by "only they and not all consumers."

"On the other hand, and even more serious, the large electricity companies, which sell electricity to their own intra-group marketers at a price lower than the wholesale market (which allows them to have almost all their contracts at a fixed price) will be largely excluded from have to pay any compensation", he assessed.

Another of the issues that Feníe denounces is that the exemption of part of the gas payment will not be made on the electricity finally consumed and paid for by the final customers, but on the amount of energy previously purchased by the marketers for the next 12 months.

"So if a company can present a large amount of previously purchased energy (as only those in the oligopoly can do) it will have a large exemption that will be maintained even if its customers go to another company and do not consume that specific energy. Bearing in mind that company changes are common, the result will be that the large ones will be able to have a very large surplus of energy exempt from paying gas compensation, thus gaining a competitive position that no other agent in the market will be able to have", says the marketer.

Fenie understands that it is still possible to limit the scope of the "damages" and proposes a monthly update of the energy of each marketer that is exempt from payment so that it better adjusts to that actually sold to final consumers.

Other ways that it considers opportune is the materialization of the reduction of the guarantees to operate that are required of independent marketers and, above all, that the planned energy auctions be held in which the large electricity companies must put on the free market at least 25% of their cheap energy that they now reserve for their own marketers.