Regulator confirms increase of 1.2% in the electricity in 2017 – Express

The Regulatory Entity of Energy Services (ERSE) has confirmed this Thursday that the regulated tariff of electricity will increase by 1.2% in 2017, or 57 cents a account, a monthly average of 46.7 euros.

This increase is not directly for all, but only to about 1.3 million consumers who are still in the regulated market. However, it can affect the other approximately 4.7 million customers who are already on the free market, because the discounts the carriers are based on the regulated tariff.

According to the regulator, this is the smallest increase of the last 10 years. In 2016, for example, the account was 2.5 percent more expensive in 2015 increased to 3.3%. But in this period the largest increase was the same in 2007 when the account was 6% more expensive.

To explain this worsening less expressive of the electricity tariff are a number of factors, some of them related with the measures taken by the own control knob.

So, says the ERSE, the prices are going up because there’s a debt rate accumulated from the previous years amounts already to 1784 million euros, but also because the production of energy at the dams and wind farms was "in 2016, much higher than expected”. That is, it rained more and it made more wind and, therefore, a significant part of the eletridade that was consumed was produced by these sources.

Now, “both trends have contributed to an upward revision of the estimate of the cost of electric energy acquired to Special Regime generators (PRE) renewable to 2016, compared with the foreseen in the tariffs in 2016. But the price in the wholesale market has dropped and therefore the cost difference between one and the other increased, and this increase must now be embedded in the tariffs for 2017.

This is because, explains the ERSE, “the differential of costs with the electric energy acquired to the PRE, per unit produced is calculated by the difference between the prices the average acquisition of this power, and the average price in the wholesale market. The decrease of this last price will contribute to an increase in the cost differential with the electric energy acquired to the PRE”.

Still, the rise is less significant than in previous years due to efficiency targets that the regulator has established for the companies, so as to not spend so much money. And yet because by the various legislative measures of cost cutting that have been taken in recent years, such as, for example, to use revenues from the auctioning of carbon to bring down the rates.

according To the ERSE, the approximately 690 thousand consumers already benefit from the social tariff will be in 2017, an increase of 25 cents per month, this is assuming an average monthly from 20.4 euros.

This increase arises because, despite the discount applied to social tariffs be the same as it was this year – the 33.8% – it is applied on the regulated tariff that will rise as already mentioned above.