Don’t be surprised if you see your electricity bills gone up again. It’s not only because the emergency property tax 2012 will be tagged in the August bills sent but Greek Public Power Company (DEH). It is because Energy Regulatory Authority has decided to increase the fees for Renewable Energy by 47 percent.
Greece’s Regulatory Authority for Energy (RAE) decided to increase the fee for renewable energy sources from €5.5 to €8 in order to cover the deficit of the market operator. A deficit that exceeds 400 million euro. And permanently grows due to the increase of the photovoltaic systems.
The fee increase will be retroactive as of August 1, 2012. The responsible ministry approved the increase.
Greek PPC Consumer
The Ministry for Environment and Energy has decided anyway to launch a package of measures that is expected to hit the photovoltaic market in Greece. As usual, the originally as “revolutionary innovation project” supported by the government fades away a couple of years later due to bad management, bad deals and wrong-ceoncepts of investment.
New Measure Shock the Photovoltaic Market
According to Kathimerini, Greek government package will include,
-a significant reduction to the guaranteed prices for new photovoltaic projects -an extraordinary levy on operating solar systems – a tax on domestic panels –increase to RES charge on electricity bills.
“The reason the ministry is taxing photovoltaic is it needs to streamline the renewable energy sources (RES) market, which is close to bankruptcy.
“However, the photovoltaic sector is in a state of shock as the measures are expected to reverse the once-favorable environment in the market. This is based on a guaranteed price that is 30 times higher than that in Germany, which has much fewer sunshine hours than Greece. This explains the great growth in the sector in Greece, which amounted to 61 percent year-on-year in 2011.”
The electricity price was fixed by the Greek government – it was just an effort to push more and more people to photovoltaic panels.
The sector asked for the intervention of the prime minister to avert measures that would affect existing investments and hamper development. Reaction focuses on the taxation of operating systems and on a considerable reduction in new contracts. Photovoltaic producers have also presented data showing that their sector is not responsible for the deficit of Operator of Electricity Market (LAGIE).
All Against All
Daily Ethnos recently reported about the bad economic situation of PPC due to debts by consumers. And that PV-electricity producers threaten to sue Regulatory Authority for Energy because “LAGIE owes them 100 million euro” and does not pay them at all.
The blames go from one operator to the next and all together blame the state, precisely the Finance Ministry, for tagging the emergency property tax on the electricity bills. PPC-customers simply refused to pay their obligations leaving PPC with a black hole of more than 2 billion euro.
Until the several disputes are settled, the Government grabs the same old recipe: Get every PPC subscriber to pay an additional fee of 2.50 euro…
I think we call it “tax-payers subsidize private investments“: photovoltaic panels producers from Germany, China & USA, farmers who turned their agricultural fields into PV-parks, property owners who installed cheap energy resources on their roofs…
And at the very end photovoltaic current will be more expensive that PPC electricity. More or less the same happening with Natural Gas bills, subject to permanent hikes through extra fees and increased taxes.
PS What? Your income is decreased but prices increase? That’s the internal devaluation, the IMF promised us long ago…
What I just love about this renewable energy tax is: those producing their own renewable energy for their own private use don’t have to pay this tax because: they don’t recieve an electric bill! Makes sense, doesn’t it? Ditto of course that these folks are also not having to divy up their share of the emergency real estate tax as – so far – this tax as well is only being levied on those with a (legal) electricity connection. Everyone who uses (solely) solar or wind to bring power to their homes – especially in remote areas where connection to DEI or other power suppliers is difficult/impossible/extremely expensive – is basically getting off scot free. Great news for them – and well, a part of me says more power to them – but fair it is not! How much longer will it take for this country to have a functioning, more or less all included land/property registry? And one more point: has anyone else opened their August DEI invoice to find the lovely surprise that the emergency property tax for this fiscal year has gone up? In our case (on Crete) to the tune of about 100 euro more than last year. If so, would be interested to hear if anyone has any idea why. Regards GK
1) subscribers to private electricity power producers do indeed pay emergency property tax. However I really do not know how it is with solar energy – exempted? well done lol
2) I got my AUgust PPC bill and I did not understand a single word about whether there is emergency proparty tax installment, or just the electricity bill went up or the RES charges. Five years ago, I could 100% understand the PPC/DEH bill. Since two years, I cannot.
to paraphrase Orwell:
doublespeak, doublethink and newspeak. Maybe even mispeak?
When the language on offical papers becomes anything other than simple and straight foreward, you know one thing for certain, you are being screwed!