The electricity companies fear that the end of the Government's anti-crisis measures will unleash new delays in electricity billing

The regulatory truce that the electricity sector has enjoyed in recent months is about to conclude with the lifting of the anti-crisis measures approved by the Government to contain the escalation of energy prices. More than a year ago, the entry into force of these adjustments by decree to the electricity bill caused delays of several months in the issuance of receipts by most electricity companies. Now, these companies anticipate a new wave of

Late billing

.

Regulators and companies take it for granted that the Executive will break the fiscal shield for electricity consumers before the end of the year. Paradoxically, the normalization of the rules of the game could revive the moments of chaos that

electricity throughout Spain, given that distributors will have to readjust their distribution parameters to the new scenario in an accelerated way.

At the end of 2021, when Spain began to apply the first adjustments in the receipt, the price of electricity in the wholesale market (pool in the jargon) came to break the barrier of

(euros/MWh). In 2022, prices settled into a succession of all-time highs, a very different trajectory than the one they are drawing in 2023. If in April 2022 the average price was 191.52 euros/MWh, it has been located at

in the same period of the current year.

Although global uncertainty prevents ruling out new bullish scenarios, everything indicates that the storm in the electricity market has passed. Electricity prices no longer justify a multibillion-dollar hit to revenue. Electricity prices no longer justify a multibillion-dollar hit to revenue.

Among the anti-crisis measures that forced electricity companies to redesign their billing models include reductions in charges (regulated costs of the receipt) or the reduction of VAT on electricity and other taxes charged to it. Before, the

It approved the application of the new electricity bill by time slots, a turn that disrupted all the computer models of the electricity distributors.

The two companies that accumulated the greatest delays in the transfer of invoices were Unión Fenosa and E-distribución Redes Digitales, the distribution subsidiaries of Naturgy and Endesa, respectively. The CNMC itself came to open a sanctioning file against both companies for delays in invoices, a procedure that resulted in the decision of the CNMC to require both companies to offer their customers a way to split or postpone the payment of invoices issued at the wrong time.

In the case of Endesa, the fairies conspired to exacerbate the lack of control. In April 2022, in the midst of a regulatory flood, the company initiated a change of its own billing system with a view to improving its digital architecture. "The implementation of the new system and the

It needs a period of stabilization of the processes that affects the billing deadlines, "they expose from the electric company.

Regulatory swing

The CEO of Endesa,

, pointed out at the last Shareholders' Meeting to the more than a hundred regulatory changes that have entered into force almost the day after their publication, which in his opinion has left the company without margin to adapt its processes and systems to the new model. In the case of Endesa, delays are still occurring. "We are working to regularize the situation as soon as possible and be able to

of our customers", point out official sources of the energy group.

The Chairman of Naturgy,

, has also publicly adduced the regulatory swing to explain the adaptation effort made by energy companies: "We have lived the shortest period in which there have been more regulations, more than 20 European and national, which make regulatory departments have to

. It had never been seen before." Technical sources qualify the version of the