Despite the relief in international natural gas prices, the Entidade Reguladora dos Serviços Energéticos (ERSE) proposes an annual price increase in the regulated market for domestic customers for the 12 months from October 2023.
This increase will be 2.4% compared to the prices currently paid by consumers, considering that regulated rates already suffered an extraordinary increase in January. Comparing the annual regulated tariffs for 2022/2023 with those now indicated for 2023/2024, the update is 3.2%. These increases will be applied to a universe of 408,000 consumers in the regulated market, a universe that has grown significantly with the measure that the Government approved last year to allow free market customers to return to regulated rates.
To justify the price increase proposal for 2023/2024, ERSE refers to the increase in network access tariffs in the 2023-2024 gas year, due to a decrease in demand, which translates into an increase in the costs of the infrastructures that must be covered.
This lower demand has also been a consequence of the European campaign to reduce the demand for natural gas due to the energy crisis created with the invasion of Ukraine by Russia.
Despite this six-month increase announced for daqui — and will correspond to an average increase in the average monthly bill of less than one euro —, the regulated rates for natural gas continue to become more competitive than the prices of the free market, which will not rise much last year. This despite the fact that some companies such as Galp and EDP have recently announced price reductions starting in April.
Source: Observadora
