European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen disclosed the sharp drop in an energy update statement today.
She said, ”Through diversification we have increased deliveries of LNG or pipeline gas from the US, Norway, Algeria, Azerbaijan, and others. For example Norway is now delivering more gas to the EU than Russia. And we are making massive investments in home-grown renewables through RePowerEU.”
But the manipulation of the gas markets has a spillover effect on the electricity market, she said.
In response, it has set up Smart Savings of Electricity, which aims to flatten the peaks which drives electricity prices and it proposes a mandatory target for reducing electricity use at peak hours.
Second, it is proposing a cap on revenues of companies producing electricity with low costs.
She said, “Low carbon energy sources are making unexpected revenues, which do not reflect their production costs. It is now time for consumers to benefit from the low costs of low carbon energy sources, like renewables.”
Trading Hub Europe (THE) today published the product description and the prequalification conditions for the new balancing gas product Load Reduction (LRD). In addition the adjusted Terms and Conditions for balancing gas were also published. Click here for more details.
With the new product LRD industrial consumers can make their switch-off potential available to the balancing gas market.
The submission of offers for the LRD product is expected to be possible from mid-September and offers will be retrieved from October 1.
Last month the SLP balancing neutrality charge was set at 5.70 EUR/MWh, and RLM balancing neutrality charge at 3.90 EUR/MWh. The conversion fee for converting H-Gas to L-Gas is at 0.45 EUR/MWh and the conversion neutrality charge at 0.38 EUR/MWh. The VTP fee is set at 0.00148 EUR/MWh, the gas storage neutrality charge will be 0.59 EUR/MWh.
Spain will extend a gas price cap to power plants linked to heavy industry amid fears Russia could cut off all gas supply to Europe by land or sea, according to Reuters.
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said the government will temporarily change power market regulations relating to the use of heat from industrial processes such as producing tiles, concrete, or fertilisers.
“We will make an exception for big (gas) users so that they are temporarily covered by the Iberian mechanism,” he said during a speech in Senate, referring to an agreement with the European Union that allows Spain and Portugal to subsidise the cost of natural gas in power generation.