Under the slogan Forget the Pool, Naturgy is going to launch an initiative to alleviate the effects on consumers of the current electricity price crisis. This was announced by its president Francisco Reynés in the framework of the VI Energy Forum, held by elEconomista, which brought together the main leaders of the Spanish energy sector.
In this sense, Reynés has recognized that “I had never seen so much information about energy in the media”, to which he added that “it is true that there have been raw materials, specifically energy, which have increased their prices sharply in the international markets that no company and no country can do anything about directly. Therefore, we are subject to market forces that sometimes work in a positive direction and sometimes in a negative direction.”
To counteract the historical prices that electricity is setting, during the next 24 months, without additional conditions and without permanence, domestic customers will pay the cost of energy “at the same level of the pool price that they had before this escalation, that is to say , 60 euros/MWh. They will have the possibility of contracting a liberalized rate that depends only on us and that will be launched as of September 15”.
A measure aimed at customers of the regulated market, some 11 million, of the liberalized market and also at customers of other marketers who want to modify their conditions. According to the Chairman of Naturgy, this shows that “companies also look at business decisions from a social perspective”.
Likewise, the president of Naturgy wanted to recall that a special situation is being experienced after a pandemic that is being reflected now: the crisis affected production levels, inventories, price references… “Now what is happening In addition, with a progressive increase in the cost of CO2 rights (which are fulfilling their function, since they came to discourage emissions) we are seeing a completely different market from the one we had planned”.
In this regard, in the first quarter of the year the price of the electricity pool was around 60 euros/MWh, which, extended to the rest of the year, would mean that a domestic consumer with a rate linked to the pool would be paying a little more than 700 euros a year. Today it reaches 135.65 euros/MWh.
“The cost of energy is one of the factors that influence the electricity bill, but not the only one. In fact, the pool during the first half of the year has behaved in a similar way in terms of price as in 2018”, Reynés pointed out.
On the other hand, the president of Naturgy wanted to highlight that energy companies in particular played a prominent role in terms of their commitment to society to offer solutions that help citizens in the most difficult moments of the pandemic. “At that time, Naturgy designed a pioneering package of measures: advancing liquidity to small suppliers, delaying invoices for the most vulnerable consumers, designing measures for the safety of employees in the workplace and that of their families at home, providing free energy to all medicalized hotels… We believe that now the current situation also requires social commitment and leadership”.
Another of those in charge of inaugurating the Energy Forum was Federico Linares, president of EY, who stressed that “European funds represent an extraordinary opportunity to transform Spain.” In this regard, Linares has wondered if the country is prepared for the energy sector to be a vector of change for the economy and society as many other sectors will be in the field of the Next Generation. A help that, as the president of EY has recalled, “does not end when the calls end”.
Federico Linares, President of EY
Likewise, Linares has stressed the “enormous challenge of climate change and biodiversity. We are the last generation that will be able to face this challenge with guarantees of solving it.” The European Union has set itself the goal of achieving climate neutrality by 2050. “We cannot deviate a single day, month or year from the course we have set for ourselves,” Linares indicated.
Technology as an ally
For his part, Alberto Granados, president of Microsoft, has pointed out that “without the energy companies we do not have any sense. As we open new data centers we need energy.”
Granados explained that Microsoft’s objective is to be a technology partner for electricity companies on their way to decarbonization, decentralization, and digitization. “We need to accelerate innovation and how we are implementing the technology to the value chain.”
Alberto Granados, President of Microsoft
The president of Microsoft has highlighted four areas of work in his objective of accompanying the companies in the sector: the modernization of the workforce, not only with the arrival of teleworking, but also in the plants themselves, the operators can manage operations remotely ; sustainability, since the company is going to decarbonize all its operations to make its CO2 emissions negative in 2030 and it intends to reverse all those emitted since 1975; innovation and optimization of operations.
It is precisely the latter that is concentrating an important part of the group’s effort. For example, in “the use of concepts such as digital twins or Artificial Intelligence to create an intelligent distribution network or to help in exploration environments or refineries”, explained Granados during his speech while adding that digitization “can save million in capex and opex because it allows simulating environments to anticipate what may happen”.
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