The Government finalizes the new methodology for calculating the regulated electricity rate

MADRID, 5 Oct. (EUROPA PRESS) -

The Ministry for the Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge will imminently release for public consultation the modification of the calculation methodology for the electricity regulated rate, the so-called Voluntary Price for Small Consumers (PVPC), with which it intends to give stability to consumers covered by this rate, among which are the vulnerable, as reported to Europa Press in government sources.

The Royal Decree-law by which the Iberian mechanism was approved last May, by which Brussels allowed Spain and Portugal the exception of limiting the price of gas and lowering electricity, already included the mandate to modify the methodology of calculation of the PVPC to incorporate references based on a basket of forward products and the daily and intraday market.

In that Royal Decree, the Government undertook to carry out, before October 1, "the necessary modifications in Royal Decree 216/2014, of March 28, which establishes the methodology for calculating voluntary prices for the small consumer of electrical energy and its legal contracting regime, to introduce a reference to the prices of the forward markets, incorporating in the formulation of the calculation of the voluntary price for the small consumer a price component based on a basket of products term and the daily and intraday market".

However, it was already anticipated that the new methodology would begin to be applied from the beginning of 2023.

Specifically, the basket of products will include futures market products, among them, annual futures, quarterly futures and monthly futures may be used, and will include a daily and intraday market price component that guarantees a certain exposure of these consumers to the signal price in the short term and encourage energy efficiency, storage and demand management.

According to Cadena Ser, the Government's calculations suggest that with this new methodology, which thus seeks to give more weight to the most stable references, those of the year (up to 54%), to avoid jumps in the PVPC price, compared to the current oscillations of the newspaper, the volatility of the rate would be reduced by up to a third.

The Executive plans to introduce this new system gradually from next year so that it represents half of the regulated market, 55%, in the year 2025.

Just under 10 million consumers are currently covered by the regulated tariff (PVC), compared to the more than 19 million who have a fixed-price supply, which allows them to maintain the agreed prices until the date of review of their contracts.

In fact, already at the end of last year there was a significant increase in the transfer of customers with a regulated rate to the free market in the face of upward fluctuations in the electricity market.