The Council of Ministers has finally approved the mechanism that limits the price of gas that will be used for electricity generation with the aim of lowering electricity prices, as confirmed this morning by the Minister for the Ecological Transition, Teresa Ribera, and the cost of which will be borne by the electricity companies by cutting their ‘extraordinary’ profits.
The cost for the electricity companies could be around 6,000 million euros, as Endesa’s executive CEO, José Bogas, recently declared.
The price of gas will be capped at 40 euros per MWh in the first six months and will then rise little by little until it reaches an average of 48 euros in a year. With this measure, the price of electricity in the wholesale market should not exceed 130 euros per MWh, compared to the current price of more than 200 euros.
According to Ribera, this “unprecedented” mechanism will benefit all consumers, both domestic and SMEs and industries. And in the same way, clients with a regulated rate and those who have contracts in the free market, whose prices will be updated as they are renewed.
The measure will be published in the BOE tomorrow, so it would come into force on Sunday. However, Ribera has clarified that it has to be effective at the same time as in Portugal, whose Government will also approve this mechanism today. Likewise, the European Commission must still give its approval to the regulations that have been approved today.
The third vice president has criticized the electricity companies in general “for not having a behavior more in line with the current situation by offering lower prices” and the president of Iberdrola, Ignacio Galán, in particular. “It gave me a deep embarrassment” when he said a few days ago that “only fools continue with a regulated rate.”
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