The Competitive Electricity Market (CEM), which has already completed three months since its began operating, is continuing to have difficulties, mainly due to participants not being sent metering data from the Distribution System Operator.
In fact, due to the failure to send this information, participants are pricing blindly, while large discrepancies of up to 20% in the distribution of costs are being observed.
This were emphasised, among other things, by the President of the Electricity Market Association (EMA), George Chrysochos in statements to InBusinessNews. He also welcomed the Cyprus Energy Regulatory Authority's recent decision to reduce the charges for non-compliance of production consumption by participants in the CEM by 90%.
More specefically and when asked to assess the operation of the Competitive Electricity Market to date, Chrysochos said that "things, three months after the official launch of the Competitive Electricity Market, still remain difficult."
This, he added, "is mainly due to the fact that no measurement data has yet been sent to anyone, let alone the participants."
Unfortunately and with our regret, we observe a terrible obstruction on the part of the Distribution System Operator, who, while he should have done so by now, has not sent the said data to the direct participants, with the result that everyone is now pricing blindly, without even knowing how much their customers consume."
"The exact same scenario is observed, unfortunately, during the process of sharing the costs of the mandatory integrated units in the CEM, resulting in exclusions in the distribution of costs of up to 20%, which are considered to be and are very large," he continued.
As he explained, these are units that offer the necessary stability to the network and operate on a 24-hour basis, 365 days a year, regardless of RES.
For these units, he further explained, "their costs are shared, distributed among all market participants according to their market shares. But without measurement data and because they have only just started doing it, the whole process is suffering."
"Fortunately for all of us, however, CERA recently issued a decision, following our own intervention, according to which the charges imposed for non-compliance with production consumption will be reduced by 90%," he stressed.
Asked when the Distribution System Operator was required to provide the data, Chrysochos indicated that it was required to do so from the first day of operation of the Competitive Electricity Market.
Asked why the Administrator is not publishing the data, the President of EMA said that this is something that the Administrator himself must answer, reiterating that "unfortunately, due to the fact that the Administrator has not yet sent measurement data, the market cannot function properly."
(Source: InBusinessNews)
