Spanish homes and companies have paid 1.6 billion euros more in the last five years on their electricity bill. This is what is known as the electrical surplus: the income derived from the regulated part of the bill with which the different costs of the system are financed, including aid for renewable energy, the payment for the distribution and transport networks of the light, or the aid to lower the light in the Canary Islands ...

Where does all that money go? A report published on Tuesday by the National Commission of Markets and Competition (CNMC) details what the savings are spent on a system that at the end of last 2019 was still accumulating a debt of 16,602 million euros for past excesses.

The Law requires that the surplus funds be dedicated precisely to amortize that debt, since this hole prevents the regulated part of the invoice from being reduced significantly - 40% of the total - and keeps the Spanish receipt permanently as One of the most expensive in Europe.

But the reality is very different. The different international lawsuits in which the State is plunged by the cut in remuneration for renewable energy executed by the last Government of the PP and the new energy transition policy of the current Executive have absorbed a large part of the electric piggy bank.

Specifically, 316 million euros were destined to return to electricity companies the cost they had incurred to finance the social bond, that is, the 25% discount on the bill received by low-income households or large families.

On the other hand, the current vice president of Ecological Transition, Teresa Ribera, ordered in December 2018 the withdrawal of a total of 120 million from the surplus fund to promote a new round of renewable energy aid.

But the money from the surplus also reaches the livestock feces. A total of 11 million euros of this fund were allocated to the treatment of slurry treatment centers that transform their waste into gas. These facilities were also affected by the cut in electric aid, but the National Court later overthrew this adjustment and ordered the payment of the remuneration.

All these outflows of money have left a total of 1,037 million euros in the piggy bank , but their destiny does not seem to be destined to repay a debt that costs about 300 million euros each year in interest alone.

The State has already received several sentences against different arbitration courts for the cut to renewable energy, but has not yet paid the compensation established in the awards. Currently the amount of lost claims is already around 1,000 million euros.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

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