The large electricity companies are once again engaged in a commercial battle to bring clients from the regulated rate (PVPC) to the free rate and recover part of the market share lost to independent marketers.
Repsol, Endesa, Iberdrola and Total Energies have started commercial campaigns after almost four months of inactivity due to the uncertainty generated by the implementation of the so-called Iberian exception.
Repsol offers new customers who contract their electricity and natural gas rates various discounts that allow them to recover up to 270 euros. If a consumer contracts an electricity and/or natural gas product, the company can give them up to €120 euros of balance in their Waylet application. Specifically, it offers €40 euros for one contract, €80 euros for two contracts, €120 euros for two contracts plus a value-added service (eg 24-hour assistant). In addition, and just for being a Repsol electricity and/or gas customer, you can receive up to €150 more balance in Waylet that you can accumulate with your refueling through discounts, not counting the 20 cents that are applied by the regulations approved by the Government.
In the case of Endesa, the largest electricity marketer in the country, it offers a 20% discount on electricity consumption for one year. The company offers its customers stable prices, without permanence and without time slots. The company’s objective is to transfer clients from the regulated market to the free market because prices are currently higher and the company has the possibility of managing a lower price.
Iberdrola, for its part, also offers a 100-euro discount on the bill if electricity and gas are contracted, 60 euros with the stable electricity plan and 40 euros with the exclusive gas plan, according to company estimates.
The bidding war has allowed electricity consumers to flee from the regulated rate during 2021
Total Energies, another of the country’s large marketers after the purchase of EDP’s client portfolio, maintains a campaign with a 9% discount for new clients for four years and a 20% discount for the fixed term of gas. This promotion of the French company will end in the next six days.
This bidding war, which had already started last year and was paralyzed by the preparation of the gas cap, has allowed electricity consumers to flee from the regulated rate during 2021.
According to data from the National Markets and Competition Commission, 1.2 million customers switched last year from the PVPC to a fixed rate in the free market. This volume of change means double the level registered in 2020 when 575,000 customers changed or that of 2019 when 660,000 customers did.
41 marketers less
According to data from the institution chaired by Cani Fernández, last year 41 electricity marketers disappeared. Nine of them were disabled due to non-payment and 35 ceased their activity voluntarily. This situation meant that part of its debt had to be assumed by the system -although the CNMC does not reveal the amount- and that 34,000 customers saw how their electricity contract was transferred to a marketer of last resort.
Despite the advancement of the 2021 data, the agency has only made the final figures public until June 30, 2021. At that time, the electricity market was made up of approximately 29.8 million supply points, of which 10 .7 million were supplied through a Reference Marketer or COR (35.9%), while the rest, 19.1 million, were supplied through a free marketer (64.1%).
In the free market there are more than 300 marketers
In the last three years, the number of points supplied by free marketers has increased progressively by just over 1.1 million (+6.2%), while supplies in the regulated market have been reduced by 695,000 (-6.1%) points.
As of June 30, 2021, the four retail groups with the largest share supplied 76.1% of the total free market (three years earlier they supplied 85.1%). On the same date, the other marketers supplied 23.9% of these supplies, equivalent to approximately 4.6 million points (three years earlier they supplied 14.9%, equivalent to 2.7 million points). Notable among them were the Repsol Group (4.2% share), Fenie Energía (2.3%), CIDE HC Energía (2% share), the Audax Group and the Holaluz Group (1.4%), Aldro Energía and Solutions (1.2%), Alterna Operador Integral and Som Energia (0.7%), the Visalia Group (0.6%) and Collective Energy and the Factor Energy Group (0.5%). The rest of marketers had quotas of less than 0.5%.
In the free market there are more than 300 marketers and the large companies aspire to take advantage of their generation capacity in order to increase the number of clients while achieving sufficient profitability with their installed power. This bidding war, on the other hand, is causing serious problems for small marketers, who are seeing their portfolios shrink.
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