PRESS: Power generators want guaranteed fees on tomorrow market

MOSCOW, Dec 21 (PRIME) -- Generating companies have suggested introduction of minimum guaranteed fees on the electric power market with tomorrow delivery, the only competitive segment of power trade left, business daily Kommersant reported on Tuesday citing a joint letter to regulator Sovet Rynka (Market Council). 

The market with tomorrow delivery sells real kilowatt-hours. The power generators offer prices and volumes, and the consumers bid their prices and volumes.

The companies ask Sovet Rynka to set a minimum price at the lower level of production costs for each hour of trade to ensure profits.

The generating companies also suggest abolishing or reducing the number of offers with a zero price, which now account for 90% of offers and inclusion of night trade losses into offers during day trade. They also want the council to guarantee profits for the heat power stations.

The paper said that the proposals are the reaction to the Energy Ministry initiative to abolish the mechanism of artificial price rises at night, because the authors of the letter -- Inter RAO CEO Boris Kovalchuk, Gazprom Energoholding CEO Denis Fyodorov and head of Council of Energy Producers Dmitry Vologzhanin – believe that it will result in a 12% price fall on the European part of Russia and in an almost 9% decline in Siberia, while the generating companies will incur annual losses of up to 100 billion rubles.

(74.2947 rubles – U.S. $1)

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