Ribera hopes to reach an agreement soon to offer more electricity at a reasonable time and price

The third vice president and minister for the Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge, Teresa Ribera, he hopes that in the next few days a agreement between energy companies and large electro-intensive sectors so that there is a “greater supply of forward electricity supply, at reasonable prices“.

During the inauguration of the conference ‘The Future of Science and Innovation’, held this Monday in Bilbao, in which Iñigo Urkullu also participated, the third vice president alluded to the fact that the coverage level that the industry has regarding the supply and price of electricity is “limited“.

“In industries that are intensive in electricity consumption, they have little coverage of that part of their fixed costs that represents the price of electricity. There is a part that they cover with medium and long-term contracts, at a fixed price, but there is another part that are covered every day by going to the wholesale market“, has added.

Ribera considers that it affects “in such an important way” the price hike and there is a “great difference” with other European industries that have long-term fixed-price contracts “with greater coverage than the Spanish industry.”

As he has advanced, they are talking with energy companies and with the large-scale electricity consuming industry “in order to facilitate forward contract offers with “price levels lower than this gas rally, decoupled from the price of gas.” Thus, he hopes that “throughout the next days“there may be a agreement and let there be a “Higher supply in that forward electricity supply, at reasonable prices”.

Likewise, the minister stressed the importance of working on the European scope before the rise in prices, because there has been an initial response, which, in his opinion, “falls short”, but “opens the door to continue working.”

At the inauguration of the conference ‘The Future of Science and Innovation’, the Lehendakari Iñigo Urkullu has proposed having a strategic gas reserve as a transition energy within a State Pact for Energy, and before this proposal, Ribera He has stated that they are analyzing it.

Given the specific proposal of the Executive of Urkullu to eliminate or temporarily postpone all electricity charges and that these be financed by the State, he has specified that there are fixed costs on the invoice and, if it is proposed to integrate them now into the budgets, “whoever raises it in the Spanish Parliament.” The PP has raised it three times and has asked for a vote three times, “he pointed out.