Pollution comes to the rescue of consumers’ electricity bills

For the fourth time in the last four months, the distribution of revenues from the auctions of pollutant emissions rights has changed in order to enrich the “counters” of the Energy Transition Fund (TEM) and to subsidize the… inflated electricity bills.

According to the new decision of the Ministry of Environment and Energy which, according to information available to OT, yesterday took the road to the National Printing Office, the new distribution deprives the resources received by the National Recycling Organization (EOAN), which designs and implements alternative waste management policies. EOAN directed 1% of the revenues from the emissions auctions, which is now zero.

Also, once again, the Special Account for Renewable Energy Sources (ELAPE) is “weakening”, which will absorb 3.8% of revenues from pollutants (the last Ministerial Decision of December “dropped” it to 4% from 8% in November, 30% in October and 60% from the beginning of 2021).

The percentage received by the ministry itself (from 1% to 0.2%) also went under the axe in order to cover accumulated debts of previous years. The “Delta Nestos – Vistonida – Ismarida Delta Management Agency” was left out, which received 0.04% of the revenues to cover its operating expenses.

The amounts lost by ELAPE, EOAN, the Environment Ministry and the Agency will enrich the Energy Transition Fund in order to continue subsidizing the tariffs while an extra 1% will go to the ministry to cover its operating expenses.

In general, for 2022, the revenues from the auctions of pollutant emission rights are estimated to amount to 1.5 billion to 2 billion euros, according to the Manager of Renewable Energy Sources and Guarantees of Origin (DAPEEP). According to the Administrator, about 20 million rights will be sold at auctions this year and the estimates for the revenues have been made with an average annual price of 75 euros / ton, but already for January the average price is close to 85 euros per ton. It is noteworthy that the prices of pollutant rights in the European stock market are above 80 euros per ton from 29 December, while from 25 January they are over 85 euros approaching 90 euros in recent days, while European analysts consider a possible rise soon even to 100 euros.

The revenue of the rights, based on the new decision of RIS, will be distributed as follows:

3.8% (from 4% provided) in the Special RES Account
74.90% (from 73.86%) to the Energy Transition Fund
11% for the support needs of industries exposed to a significant risk of carbon leakage. Any amount that will not be used will be a resource of ELAPE.
4.5% in the Green Fund for the financing of actions in the demilitarized regional units of Kozani, Florina and in the Municipality of Megalopolis.
-1.5% in the Green Fund for the financing of projects for the protection, preservation and improvement of the natural environment.
1.5% to the Bank of Greece for the financing of projects and actions for the promotion of e-mobility.
-0.2 (from 1% provided) to RIS to cover expenses from the country’s subscriptions to international organizations and conventions. With the 1% of the revenues from the pollutants that he collected last year (around 10 million euros), he paid off many years of accumulated liabilities.
1% to the National Energy Efficiency Fund  to finance projects and actions to improve energy efficiency through competitive processes in final consumption.
0.6% to the Organization of Natural Environment and Climate Change.
1% to RIS to cover its operating expenses. No percentage was provided in the previous decision of the Environment Ministry
Finally, the distribution list does not include EOAN and the Nestos Management Body.

It should be noted that, in addition to the revenues from the rights auctions, TEM will be enriched directly by ELAPE with an amount of over 200 million euros which will come from the returns of the additional revenues received by the RES producers who are compensated. with feed in premium from their participation in the electricity market, due to the high prices that are formed in the wholesale market.