In 2016, the electricity system registered a surplus of 421,45 million euros, according to the final figure for the year released by The National Commission on Markets and Competition (CNMC in Spanish).
The CNMC said in its report that the surplus is mainly due to lower than initially forecast costs related to the specific remuneration of renewable energy production installations and the additional remuneration of non-pensinsular systems. This was partially offset by revenues external to tolls which were lower than initially estimated.
In the final liquidation for 2016, revenues totalled 696,3 million euros applying the Law 15/2012, of which 196,1 million correspond to the fee for using inland waters.
For ACF analysts the news is not particularly important: since 2014, the electricity system has been in a positive situation. In that year in particular, the surplus rose to 550,3 million euros, while in 2015 it reached 469,3 million. So it has an accumulated surplus of over 1.440 billion euros. That said, the system has over 20 billion euros of debt still to be paid off.
In any event, the Government agreed last October to return to electricity distributors the amounts paid via the discount rate in 2015 and 2016, plus the corresponding interest, and charge them against the electricity system’s surpluses.
In this way, the Energy, Tourism and Digital Agenda Ministry dealt with the court rulings which had been in favour of the electricity companies with regard to the former system of financing the discount rate. These compensations to Endesa, Iberdrola, Gas Natural Fenosa, EDP España and Viesgo for having covered the discount rate over the last few years, in accordance with their market share, total 500 million euros.
