The National Markets and Competition Commission (CNMC) has opened a Informative dossier for the large companies in the gas sector natural to analyze whether the massive transfer of clients to the regulated gas tariffs that is already taking place due to the new million-dollar aid package launched by the Government is being hindered.
The agency is requesting information from all large companies required to market regulated rates (Naturgy, Endesa, Iberdrola and Totalenergies) about the staff and technical resources they are employing to deal with the avalanche of rate change requests that have been taking place in recent weeks, following complaints from many consumers about waiting times and difficulties in obtaining contracts.
According to El Periódico de España, from the Prensa Ibérica group, the informative file is the first step in the supervisory processes that the CNMC can carry out in regulated sectors that in many cases works as a warning to navigators so that companies correct their actions and, in this case, reinforce their customer service. Depending on the information collected, the body can determine the opening of disciplinary proceedings against specific companies that involve a formal investigation and can lead to specific sanctions.
millionaire aid
The opening of the investigation has been revealed by the Secretary of State for Energy, Sara Aagesen, in an interview with RNE and confirmed by official Competition sources. The president of the CNMC herself, Cani Fernández, pointed out last week that there were no major bottlenecks in the processing of requests to change the contract and confirmed that she had “verified that the last resort marketers attend to the requests to deal with agility in contracting the regulated gas rate”. A few days later, the opening of an informative file on this same matter is confirmed.
The Ministry for the Ecological Transition is working both with the energy companies and with the CNMC to adequately dimension the means dedicated to attending to the “avalanche of requests & rdquor; of customers who ask to change the rate, according to the Secretary of State.
The Government has launched a million-dollar package of measures to lower the gas bill of more than three million households. An anti-crisis shield of 3,000 million euros that contemplates continuing to limit by law the increases that can be applied to 1.5 million customers of the regulated gas rate throughout 2023 and also the creation of a new type of rate that will halve the bill of 1.7 million homes that have central heating in their neighborhood community.
The main gas companies, obliged to offer the different regulated rates for natural gas (called rate of last resort, TUR)have been registering in recent days an avalanche of queries from clients about their leap into the regulated business and take for granted a change in trend towards a massive contracting of regulated rates after years with a diminishing client portfolio that were going to end up in free market rates.
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The number of customers benefiting from free gas market rates -whose price is freely set by the companies- is very much greater than that of customers of the regulated business -whose price is established quarterly by the Government based on the evolution of international hydrocarbon prices , but whose rises have a maximum limit since last year. With the closing data of last year, almost 6.5 million customers had contracted free rates (more than 80% of the total) and 1.5 million continued with regulated rates.
The Executive guarantees to allocate the entire public budget necessary to cover the millionaire hole that the new aid measures will cause in the accounts of the Spanish gas system, and that can be triggered by this massive flight of clients towards regulated rates. As stated in the royal decree approved this Tuesday by the Council of Ministers, the Ministry for the Ecological Transition will approve an exceptional credit for 3,000 million to cover the cost of these measures, but it commits that “this item will be increased in the amount necessary to cover the real deficit caused & rdquor; from now until the end of 2023.