Another dramatic increase in the price of electricity for households will come in 2013. It will be in the range of 15% to 49% and the rate of increase will depend on the monthly consumption. This is the request of the management of the Public Power Corporation DEI and it includes a plan for abolishing the scale of consumption. In addition to household consumers, commercial sites and medium-sized production units will suffer from an increase in the price as well. The electricity for households and small enterprises in the country that use low-voltage current will increase by an average of 25% in total.
The increase in the price of electricity will be in three stages. The first increase will come as early as 1 January 2013, when the price of electricity will increase by 10.8% on average The next increase will be in May 2013 and it will burden electricity bills by another 6.3% on average and the last increase will be made in July next year. Until then, the various levels of the price scale according to the level of consumption will be removed, which will further aggravate the electricity bills.
The proposal relates to the country’s obligation to liberalize its energy market and to base the pricing of electricity on the real costs and price ratio. DEI sent its request to the agency regulating the energy market, which should permit the increase in the price of electricity.
Before the agency announces its final decision, it has asked the Greek Public Power Corporation to submit a detailed budget of the total production costs. It should include fixed and variable costs of fuel, the different categories of operating costs and the cost of capital. The regulatory commission has asked the monopoly firm to present more data, providing a detailed picture of the needs of the consumer price update.
Greek analysts stress that the increase in electricity prices is inevitable. This is a condition, which lies in the agreement between the country and the supervisory Troika. However, according to unofficial information, it may not reach the levels recorded in the proposal of DEI.
The Deputy Minister of Energy and Environment, Asimakis Papageorgiou, stated that the government would strive to protect the most vulnerable social strata from the coming increases. "The agency regulating the energy market is an independent authority and an objective observer. It will determine the proper course of the increases. The liberalization of electricity bills that we are obliged to introduce will harmonize our market with the European standards. The amount of the increase will depend on the regulator," said Papageorgiou.
Greek media reacted sharply to the news of the dramatic increases in the price of household electricity. The headline of To Vima and Ta Nea newspapers was "DEI goes mad," Naftemporiki called the amount of the increase "surreal" and Mega TV talked about a "proposal-shock."
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