More than 9,000 clients have applied to join the company EDP Gás Serviço Universal, which offers a regulated natural gas rate, an official EDP source informed Lusa today.
According to the same source, “there have been 9,300 requests from customers to join EDP Gás Serviço Universal” since September 7. Since September 7, consumers who wish to return to the regulated gas market can now do so in a store, “without levies or charges.”
According to the terms of the diploma, the providers of last resort (CUR) will have, within a maximum period of 45 days, to provide consumers with the possibility of making this change ‘online’.
According to the text of the decree-law, it is an “exceptional and temporary regime” that allows “end customers with annual consumption less than or equal to 10,000 m3 [metros cúbicos] the return to the regulated tariff regime, harmonizing this regime with the one that already exists in the electricity sector”.
The objective is “to avoid a rise in the final prices of natural gas, in terms that weigh down families and small businesses”, in a context in which “the current situation of restriction in the supply of natural gas, motivated by the armed conflict in Ukraine, has caused progressive increases in the wholesale price of natural gas” and in which it is not expected “that this situation can be reversed in the short term”, having already announced “strong increases” in the liberalized market for next October.
Non-compliance by merchants of last resort with the provisions of the decree law constitutes a “minor infraction”, reverting the product of the application of the respective fines in 60% to the State and 40% to ERSE.
According to data from the executive, the measure that allows the transition to the regulated market has a universe of potential beneficiaries of 1.3 million.
Source: Observadora
