Electricity: conclusion of the first proceedings for the repayment in the bill of undue amounts from irregular behaviour in the wholesale markets in 2016

Milan, March 06, 2017

Italian version

After a thorough preliminary investigation, the mandatory proceedings[1] concerning the irregular behaviour in 2016 of the supply and demand operators in the wholesale electricity markets, particularly in balancing, have been closed for the first nine companies out of one hundred. The other proceedings will soon be closed.
The companies subject to these first proceedings have been found guilty of non-diligent behaviour in the market programming strategies and, as already provided for in the same resolution implementing the proceedings[2], these companies will have to repay Terna the amounts corresponding to the undue benefits awarded; amounts which will then be passed on as a permanent reduction in tariffs (uplift), to the benefit of the majority of customers. Terna will have to undertake a precise quantification of the amounts, based on criteria established by the Authority, in compliance with the contradictory with the operators and in line with the investigation results. The companies may present additional elements useful for quantification within 30 days, which will then be evaluated by the Authority.

The transactions must, in any case, be settled by Terna by August 2017. In addition the Authority will shortly close the assessments relating to the initiation of sanctioning proceedings against these companies for violation of the regulation.   In detail, the evidence uncovered during the investigation of the nine companies subject to these first measures shows that, in the first seven months of 2016, the operators involved incurred significant imbalances with percentage values, in certain consecutive months and certain areas, often much higher than the energy withdrawn. These errors, in terms of size and frequency of occurrence, conflicted entirely with the diligence and expertise required of a professional and expert operator, such as a dispatching user. The companies have therefore benefited from an economic advantage from such glaringly unbalanced programming (in terms of quantity and duration) which would not have existed if the programming had complied with the established criteria of diligence and expertise. It is therefore now ordered to repay the amounts quantified as unduly retained, re-allocating them to the benefit of the end-user.  

In the coming weeks, all proceedings implemented with Resolution 342/2016, which will gradually be accounted for and which, last December, saw the primary stage of conclusion of 12 mandatory proceedings, from among the approximately 100 operators involved, for whom no cause for repayment was found. The publication of the names of the companies to which each resolution refers, according to relevance of the issues debated and to protect the same proceedings, is deferred until the implementation of the relative sanctions and, in any case, no later than the closure of all proceedings.

[1] Implemented with Resolutions 342/2016/E/eel and 459/2016/E/eel
[2] Further detailed in Resolution 575/2016/R/eel