Highly complex bickering has broken out at in EDP’s executive suite with the energy company’s president refuting each and every calculation that has been used to show he has overseen a €500 million consumer rip-off.
The head of EDP, António Mexia, has criticised the energy regulator’s maths as a "mere theoretical simulation" and that the calculations that show EDP has been gouging customers, "grossly violates the law."
EDP totally rejects the figures presented by the energy regulator and has of course presented its own calculations based on a study by an EDP/REN working group which concluded that the electricity company is due a further €250 million in support payments by 2027 and doesn't owe its customers a cent..
Under hugely complex schemes to compensate EDP for losing supply contracts when it was sold off by the government, the Energy Services Regulatory Authority has calculated that EDP will receive a further €154 million over the next 10 years. EDP rejects this calculation and claims it is due €256 million over the next decade under the terms of the orignal agreement.
These figures are the variable payments, to which must be added a fixed €70 million per year. Taking into account the regulator’s proposal, the total amount due to EDP in the next 10 years is €850 million – but this is not enough for this private company, the study it dreamed up shows the figure should be €950 million by 2027.
António Mexia says he will now analyse the report -
"EDP does not see any reason for the discrepancy between the figures presented and will analyse the report produced by the regulator as soon as it is made available and will take the decisions and measures it deems appropriate," sniffed the company's chief.
The regulator said on Friday that the compensation would have been €500 million less between 2007 and 2017 if the recommendations made by the regulator in 2004 had been incorporated into the law created under the Pedro Santana Lopes government.
The non-binding opinion of ERSE was released on Friday, September 29, and will now be handed over to the Government.
The end game is that consumers be compensated for paying EDP an unwarranted €500 million over the past ten years but this will be fought all the way by EDP's pugnacious chief.
Comments
I believe that fuel in Portugal is the most expensive when compared with buying power/wages.
Greece, Italy and Denmark are all more expensive than Portugal (based on eu petrol chart for Sept. 2017)
If it was not for the cosy energy payment supplements charged to consumers, endorsed by a previous government, the bills would not be so huge.
These charges were all part of the conditions for EDP's sell-off.
How did consumers benefit from that event? Nil. The money has been wasted, electricity prices hiked, EDP boardroom salaries hiked - the CEO now is a multi-millionaire - and the customer is paying for it all.
EDP now spend its time bleating that life's not fair and picking away at the figures before it has to explain to its Chinese shareholders that they too have been part of a rip-off of monumental proportions