Greece’s prime minister has requested the EU to urgently reply to hovering energy costs in central and jap Europe, which Athens stated are being exacerbated by Russian assaults on Ukraine’s power infrastructure.
In a letter to the European Fee, seen by Reuters, Kyriakos Mitsotakis requested Brussels to create a bloc-wide regulator with powers to examine power markets throughout the EU, and urged the Fee to assist cross-border infrastructure tasks to switch energy between international locations.
Energy costs in Greece greater than doubled from 60 euros per megawatt hour in April to 130eur/MWh in August, the letter stated.
“We can’t clarify convincingly to our residents why the value they pay is rising so all of a sudden. That is politically unacceptable,” the letter stated.
Mitsotakis blamed the value spike, which has additionally affected international locations together with Romania and Bulgaria, on elements together with hovering temperatures this summer time, energy infrastructure outages, and hydropower reservoirs dried out by local weather change-fuelled drought.
However he stated an extra burden has come by way of Ukraine, which has change into more and more reliant on energy imported from different European international locations. Russian assaults have knocked out half of the nation’s energy producing capability this 12 months, Ukrainian officers have stated.
The EU agreed an improve of its energy market guidelines final 12 months to attempt to encourage extra fixed-price contracts with energy mills and defend shoppers from risky power markets.
However the value of energy in Europe – even in international locations which have quickly elevated native renewable power manufacturing – remains to be typically pegged to gas-fuelled energy crops, which may expose costs to sharp fluctuations in gasoline markets.
Gaps in interconnector capability between international locations and congestion in native electrical energy grids may push up costs.
“The brand new Fee ought to take up the duty of pushing by way of extra cross-border capability,” Mitsotakis stated.
The EU might want to make investments 584 billion euros in upgrading its energy grids this decade, by the bloc’s personal estimates, to overtake decades-old infrastructure and guarantee grids can carry bigger shares of renewable power.
