Ignorance and lack of interest from companies: why the cheapest gas rate only reaches 19% of people

One of the Government's latest measures to reduce the economic impact of the energy crisis has been to extend the

(TUR) for natural gas to the neighborhood communities of buildings with central heating.

It is an offer that considerably reduces bills, according to consumer associations, who also denounce impediments by energy companies for their clients to hire them.

In the text of its +Energy Security Plan, Moncloa puts at

the savings that the TUR has allowed households with heating after establishing a maximum quarterly increase of 15% in the cost of the raw material with which the rate.

In SMEs it is even higher:

.

The measure will be maintained until at least December 2023, so while gas rises at a higher rate, the TUR will be the cheapest option.

According to a recent study by Facua, the kilowatt hour

with the free market offers compared to the regulated one.

The data, yes, is prior to the last revision of the rates, which rose after being updated in October.

, general secretary and spokesperson for the organization, confirms to EL MUNDO that "after the new rate review, the TUR is still well below free market prices."

"Energy companies have spent many years convincing consumers that it was the worst option; that is, lying to them," Sánchez denounces.

He also recalls the time when

consumers were allowed, now prohibited.

"They were synonymous with fraud: they went to people's houses to deceive them."

In this new energy context, consumer defense organizations detect problems contracting this rate or pressure to abandon it.

"We find cases of consumers who tell us that they have requested TUR or PVPC and are delayed", describes the general secretary.

He also details the case of a company that removed the registration form from its website -although it appeared again shortly after-, which only leaves the telephone as the gateway for contracting, something that "reduces guarantees".

Henry Garcia

, OCU spokesman, agrees with his counterpart at Facua: "Companies are not very interested in advertising the cheapest rate."

It is, he explains, a "great unknown" that joins another unknown, that of the citizens themselves.

"74% of consumers are not very clear about the difference between the free market and the regulated market, neither in electricity nor in gas," he points out.

He is also influenced by the fact that in many cases there are joint rates for gas and electricity that are outside the regulated market and "many consumers were not aware of this circumstance."

"We have repeatedly and repeatedly denounced misleading advertising,

Therefore, these three factors are added: ignorance of the users, little interest on the part of the companies and a greater difference between what the clients of the TUR and those of the free market pay due to the cap that the Government put on the increase .

"That has caused that difference to be triggered now, which was not so great before," summarizes the OCU spokesman.

In any case, he does not anticipate problems due to pressure from marketers to change the rate, because the companies must now report what is the projection that the new one is going to have next year and García believes that this winter the last resort is the best way to avoid "bills".

TUR oscillations

There are notable differences between how many TUR consumers the four companies that offer the rate have.

Naturgy, which is the company with the most clients in the gas sector (3,667,091, 45.96% of the total, according to the latest data published by the CNMC), is also the one that dominates the TUR market:

.

This represents 73.3% of the total, but also a large percentage of its accumulated,

.

No other company exceeds 15% in this section.

Thus, of Endesa's customers -the next in volume (1,573,237, 19.72%)- only 14.54% (228,822) have last resort, a percentage that falls even further for TotalEnergies (7.59 %, 66,709) and Iberdrola (only 65,915 of its 1,107,202 clients, 5.6%).

From the sector they contextualize the data and attribute it rather to a

.

Since the market was liberalized, as happened with gas stations, electricity or telecommunications, the TUR has lost weight because there is more marketing and more offers, but "companies have nothing against the rate," says a director of one of the the four traders.

"The markup is regulated, but that doesn't mean companies aren't interested; it's just been losing weight," he explains.

"In Spain there are no gas producers: to offer gas to your customers you have to buy it," he details.

"In the current situation, this makes it unprofitable for some companies, because it cannot be offered at a higher price than the purchase price and there are companies that have backtracked on their plans," he argues.

Although environmental excuses are made, the reality is that there are companies that do not want to enter this market now because it is not worth it.

In any case, in the energy companies they believe that in the current situation the trend

, which will lead to significant differences.

The companies, however, argue that they have open communication channels with their customers, they recognize a greater interest in the TUR in recent times and attribute it to greater concern, but also to an increase in information and conversations about the rate .

A few years ago, when the market was not so stressed, the situation was the opposite: there were fewer and fewer TUR customers, as stated by the CNMC in the Supervision Report on the Spanish natural gas market corresponding to the year 2019. Then, he pointed out According to the agency, the percentage of clients was very similar to the current one -19.9%-, but it was reached after a period of decline that in that year meant the loss of 10,000 consumers.

The latest available data, also published by the CNMC and corresponding to the first quarter of 2022, already reflects this

: the rate of last resort added customers -3,726 compared to December 2021- and they were 19.12% of the total .

It should be remembered that this happened with the price of gas already soaring, but with little time for households to try to respond to the effect that the invasion of Ukraine and the sanctions against Russia had on the markets.

From Moncloa several steps have been taken that predict a winter with more movement than normal in the market.

Not only have last-resort rates been protected, but tools have also been enabled to make it easier for customers to switch.

In fact, the Executive and the energy companies have been at odds for months over the different measures that have been approved to mitigate the crisis.

Although its main problem is the so-called benefits that fell from the sky -which the former rates and the latter deny-, there has also been a division on the gas cap and how this mechanism should be reflected in the bill.

The Minister of Ecological Transition,

accused companies of using "creative qualifiers" to break down their impact each month.

The Government wanted to avoid terms that referred to a cost, payment or surcharge and finally, according to the BOE, it opted -and forced those companies that want it to be detailed on the bill- to use an aseptic "Amount of energy associated with the Iberian mechanism regulated by Royal Decree Law 10/2022, of May 13".

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