Households and corporations are looking at additional costs of more than 1.3 billion euros per month in total from soaring electricity and natural gas rates.
This explains the government’s difficulty in fully covering the hikes from the budget (just like all other governments in Europe) and ominous projections for a tough and “cold” winter ahead as many consumers will be forced to reduce consumption.
The only exception is large industries, who are high-voltage consumers and have signed electricity supply contracts with Public Power Corporation at fixed low rates.
The large majority of enterprises in the country (medium- and low-voltage) across the economy paid last month an additional cost of some €137 million, in comparison with last January, as a result of the rise in wholesale rates to €134.73 per megawatt-hour in September, from €52.52/MWh in January.
For October the average wholesale rate has so far stood at…
