Filenews 19 July 2022 - by Chrysanthos Manolis
One of the issues on which the Cyprus Energy Regulatory Authority (CERA) took a position in its letter to the EAC Board of Directors was the question of the EAC's guilds why the regulatory authority does not allow EAC to buy electricity from independent producers (possibly at a lower price than its own production costs) and to sell it -at a regulated price- to its customers.
The question - which is in fact a strong disagreement - was expressed through a question submitted to CERA in a letter from the guilds last June. This issue concerns many in EAC, even in the high floors of the management and management, as if EAC were allowed to buy electricity from RES producers it could, due to its commercial and other reliability, attract many producers, reducing the average selling price of electricity from EAC Supply.
From CERA's response, it appears that there is no possibility that CERA will accept at this stage to change its regulatory decision and allow EAC Supply to buy electricity from private producers. In its response, CERA leaves a margin to change... once its decision, "when (and only when) the conditions of the electricity market approach the aspirations of the government and compliance with the European guidelines that are the obligation of the Republic of Cyprus".
In its response, CERA explains in general terms that if EAC is allowed to offer a better price to private producers, absorbing all their production, "it would turn into a "monopsony" in the retail electricity market", outside its position of power in the wholesale electricity market. In such a case, CERA argues, "the right of consumers to have a choice of supplier would be taken away".
CERA adds in its letter: "Such a development would once again remove the real opening of the electricity market."
Elsewhere in its letter, on the same aspect, the Cyprus Energy Regulatory Authority expresses the opinion that the necessity for the transition to a competitive electricity market has not been understood, nor the intention of CERA "to lift the relevant protocols when (and only when) the conditions of the electricity market approach the aspirations of the Government and compliance with the European guidelines that are an obligation of the Republic of Cyprus".
