The new National Energy Commission will depend on Ribera and will value decarbonization to make decisions
The Council of Ministers will approve this Tuesday the draft bill to recover the National Energy Commission (CNE), the regulatory body for this activity that is currently within the National Markets and Competition Commission (CNMC) since it was integrated. in it in 2013. This is one of the investiture commitments of the president, Pedro Sánchez, to “strengthen his inspection capacity” and “limit the excessive business concentration” that the CNMC views with suspicion and for which independence and resources are requested in the energy sector. enough to carry out. The functions of the new body will be assigned to the Ministry of Ecological Transition unlike the CNMC, assigned to the Economy, and the supervision and control of the electricity, gas and hydrocarbon markets will add those of green hydrogen and other renewable gases as well as the objective of ensuring decarbonization, which as a novelty will become a criterion for determining the remuneration of energy companies or the quantification of tolls and charges.
The commitment to recover the CNE appeared in the Government agreement signed by PSOE and Sumar to align this regulatory work with the energy transformation that is causing the ecological transition, with new vectors such as hydrogen or renewable gases and the objective of decarbonization. According to this pact, it would also be about “limiting excessive business concentration and promoting competition in the markets with adequate regulation and supervision.”
As explained this Tuesday by the third vice president, Teresa Ribera, the current situation is different from that of 2013, when the CNE was integrated into the newly created CNMC.. At this time, he said, the “accelerated and intense need to transform our energy system” makes it “more than advisable to recover a specialized mechanism” that will continue with its functions of regulating the gas, electricity and hydrocarbon sectors but also new ones. renewable gases such as hydrogen introducing the criterion of decarbonization of energy.
The new CNE will have supervision and control functions of the electricity, hydrocarbon, natural gas, green hydrogen and other renewable gases markets and will also exercise inspection and sanction functions, as well as arbitration, information, attention and processing of claims. agents and consumers. As the Ministry explained, it will increase its specialization, expand its scope of action and include as a new objective “ensuring the decarbonization of the economy”. “It must favor the common objective of the European authorities in regulatory decisions, such as decarbonization,” explained Ribera.
This decarbonization objective will be reflected, for example, in the fact that to establish a remuneration methodology for electrical networks, the CNE may include incentives for distributors that quickly process files for connecting new charging stations for electric vehicles or new self-consumption systems.. Conversely, it also opens the door to penalties for extending deadlines for infrastructure that affects decarbonization.
In addition, the draft law to recover the CNE will create the Fund for the Economic-Financial Management of Settlements of the Electricity and Gas Sector (FGLSEG) to manage the corresponding income and payments for the settlements of tolls, charges, fees, regulated prices and remunerations of the electricity and gas sectors, as well as the planned transfers of the General State Budgets.
By the end of 2024
The Government's objective is for the new CNE to come into force before the end of 2024 and to do so it will process through an emergency procedure the bill that results in a preliminary draft that Ribera has pointed out has the support of the “majority” of groups in Parliament , as reported in informal conversations. Before reaching Congress, it will now go through a public hearing process to give, Ribera said, “the maximum hearing to whomever it considers, starting with the current regulator, the CNMC, which has a lot to say.”
The idea of recovering from this regulatory body caused mistrust in the energy sector, due to the extra control that the Government would like to exercise over it, and reluctance on the part of the CNMC, whose president, Cani Fernández, would have also wanted to keep it under its umbrella. control over the energy sector. The new CNE will not only cease to be integrated into the CNMC but will also change ministries, because it will no longer be attached to Economic Affairs but to Ecological Transition.
Given the Government's intention, other sources in the energy sector indicated a few days ago to 20 Minutos that they saw no harm in recovering a sectoral body, dedicated entirely to energy, but they warned that the new CNE should guarantee its “independence” in this work. of control and be equipped with sufficient means to be effective. They pointed out that the bill that will derive from the draft that the Council of Ministers approved this Tuesday should not only separate energy supervision from the CNMC, but also determine how it is financed, since the CNCM does so with funds from the Ministry of Ecological Transition and the old CNE did it with sector rates, as well as how the transfer of the around 200 people who made up its staff will be made.
The National Energy Commission functioned as an independent regulatory body until 2013, when the Government of Mariano Rajoy decided to concentrate all sectoral, Competition, Telecommunications or Energy regulators in the newly created CNMC.. The objective that was given was to save costs and create a super regulator in a movement in which there were also those who warned of a relaxation of these functions, precisely by entrusting so much volume to a single organization.. Now, the Government considers that the situation has changed and that the transformation of the energy system that the ecological transition is giving rise to requires greater focus on its regulation. Last November, Sánchez signed a government agreement with Sumar in which he included the commitment to recover it as an autonomous entity, with the intention of strengthening supervision over a sector that has been even more key in recent years.
To this end, it is proposed to recover a body that will have its own entity and budget with a structure headed by a president and six councilors who must have at least five years of experience in areas linked to the regulation of the energy sector.. Congress will analyze their appointments and will have the power to veto. In addition, it will consist of three directorates: the electrical system, hydrocarbons and new fuels, and inspection.
In addition to market supervision and control, its functions will also include inspection and sanction, arbitration, information, attention and processing of claims from agents and consumers and settling tolls, charges, prices, fees and remunerations and instructing and proposing on files in business operations in the sector to the Ministry of Ecological Transition, who will be responsible for making the final decision.
New CO2 emissions trading system
The Council of Ministers has approved a second draft law from the Ministry of Ecological Transition, in this case, to update the rules of the CO2 emissions right trading system, to force companies from third countries to comply with the same environmental requirements that the Europeans to integrate the maritime transport sector into this scheme and later, by 2027-2028, the building sector.
For two decades, European companies in certain sectors such as air transport and energy have had a limit to emit CO2, which is allowed by the free emission rights that are distributed among each of them.. With the change agreed in the EU, products imported from third countries will also have to meet these environmental requirements, something that governments defend as a way of defending their industries from more advantageous conditions from industries outside the EU. EU but against which, from the European industrial ecosystem itself, it is also warned that it can further isolate the European market and reduce its competitiveness in the world market because it will make companies that do not want to comply with their greatest demands in decarbonization to bet on others. more lax markets.
“Products from industrial sectors from third countries that want to be placed on the European market must show that the way they are produced does not apply environmental dumping with less control regarding greenhouse emissions,” explained Ribera, who assured that thus “an equivalent game of balance in environmental demands is guaranteed.”