Power bill changes could help Spanish citizens

The productivity of heavy industry in Spain has shrank from 20% of national GDP to merely 12%.

The Association of Major Energy Use Companies (the Spanish acronym is AEGE) alongside elEconomista issued a message yesterday that in order to boost competition in the power sector it will be necessary to make power bills predictable and create a clear sense of how the industry is organized, as in France or Germany.

The problem is that power bills, which include additional charges for the islands and tariff premiums on renewable energy, end up taxing production. Cutting worker salaries within the industry, which has driven power exports, should be accompanied by an effort to streamline the billing process so that sales to foreign countries can help support the domestic energy market.