Greece
's Regulatory Authority for Energy
(RAE) has written to 30 supply and trading companies asking them to pay their
undisclosed debts or risk having their licences revoked. The RAE has also asked
the firms to submit financial guarantees to electricity market operator Lagie
and grid operator Admie.
The RAE said the
unnamed companies' outstanding financial obligations should be paid in full by
15 May, otherwise proceedings to remove their licenses will be initiated. The
regulator wants to avoid issues such as those in January, when
Greece
's largest alternative electricity
providersEnerga and Hellas Power were removed from the market registerbecause
of high debts. The two firms are no longer allowed to trade or supply final
customers.
It has not been disclosed how many of the 30
participants may currently owe money or have not yet provided financial
guarantees. Participants in the Greek electricity market had not previously
been required to provide financial guarantees, which some say was a result of
the government trying to encourage the creation of a competitive retail market.
Earlier this week,
Lagie deleted trading firm Vivid Power from its market register because of unpaid
debts. It is unclear who owns Vivid Power. An investment company close to
Bulgarian trading firm OET United Energy Traders acquired parent company Vivid
Power Plc in June 2011. But OET toldArgus: “Another company close to the
group of OET used to be a shareholder but its shares were sold starting from
December 2011 in parts in order to keep only the shares in [Serbian subsidiary]
Vivid Power Doo Beograd and [Macedonian subsidiary] Vivid Power DOOEL
import-export Skopje.”
Vivid Power has been exporting power from
Greece to Turkey this month, and has secured 54MW of interconnector capacity
for such exports in May.