Ministry of Industry says he won't touch thermosolar tariffs

Spain's Minister of Industry José Manuel Soria will appear before a judge today after a Cabinet meeting in order to formally kick off an energy reform packet after months of preparations. Power bills will increase by 7% and there will be significant cuts for electric companies.

Protermosolar secretary general Luis Crespo explained to elEconomista that each of sixty thermosolar plants has received a letter from the Ministry of Industry that promises to not change payments that it is currently providing them.

The agreement was adopted by the prior Government, when Miguel Sebastián was in charge of this area of business. Sebastián offered this guarantee if thermosolar plants would agree to postpone creating new business until January 2013 and, when this date arrived, that they would proceed in four growth phases. The intention of this plan was to save the system some 1 billion euros.

With document in hand, thermosolar investors, many of them foreign investment funds, are calmer than they were before because they believe that signals a key piece of evidence if the Spanish government decides to apply cuts to the sector and the case goes to court.