EU Plans Emergency Intervention To Stem Surging Power Prices

(Bloomberg) -- The European Union is planning urgent action to try to dampen soaring power prices and is putting together proposals to reform the electricity market, according to Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.

“Skyrocketing electricity prices are now exposing, for different reasons, the limitations of our current electricity market design,” von der Leyen, who heads the EU’s executive body, said Monday in a speech at the Bled Strategic Summit in Slovenia.

“It was developed under completely different circumstances and completely different purposes,” she added. “That’s why we are now working on an emergency intervention and a structural reform of the electricity market.”

The unprecedented spike in power prices, which have soared almost 10-fold in the past year, has fueled inflation and dramatically increased the economic burden on businesses and households recovering from the pandemic.

More and more member states are calling for a price cap and the Czech Republic, which holds the rotating presidency of the EU, will convene an extraordinary meeting of energy ministers on Sept. 9.

The exact makeup of an EU intervention plan is still being developed, and EU diplomats said the commission could offer a detailed plan as soon as this week.

A draft internal EU document seen by Bloomberg News earlier this year showed the commission considered an option of capping gas prices to avoid “unbearably high” costs if Russia significantly limits or cuts off the flow. Introducing a maximum regulated price in an emergency would be limited to its duration and the market price should be used as long as possible.

One possibility would be to limit price formation during the disruption scenario by capping the price on European gas exchanges, but the document showed such a price cap can in general be introduced in different ways and can intervene at different levels of the gas value chain.

Volatile Markets

With Russia squeezing gas deliveries and power-plant outages further sapping supply, pressure is growing on EU leaders to act quickly or risk social unrest and political upheaval.

European natural gas prices on Monday plunged the most since March after Germany said its gas stores are filling up faster than planned. Benchmark Dutch front-month futures fell as much as 21%, partly reversing last week’s jump of almost 40%.

The price spikes and shortfall in Russian deliveries are also putting unprecedented pressure on some power companies. German utility Uniper SE has requested an additional 4 billion euros ($4 billion) from Germany’s state-owned lender KfW after fully using its existing 9 billion-euro credit line, it said on Monday. That additional funding is abou doubts its current market value.

The European Energy Exchange AG also said that traders need more government support to guarantee their buying and selling, particularly given the unusually volatile markets. Electricity prices for next year surged above 1,000 euros per megawatt-hour earlier on Monday, before plunging more than 20% on EEX, Europe’s biggest marketplace for power contracts. 

Seeking Consensus

On the EU front, Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala is seeking backing for his price-cap plan and discussed it with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz at bilateral talks in Prague on Monday.

Scholz told reporters at a joint news conference that he was grateful for the Czech proposal for a price cap and expressed confidence that the EU would reach an agreement quickly.

“We will look very carefully at what instruments we have that we can use to bring down electricity prices,” Scholz said. “It’s not something that can happen at random, it has to work in a technical sense, but obviously what is being set now as the market price is not a real reflection of supply and demand.”

The Czech presidency will seek to broker a solution before the Sept. 9 meeting of energy ministers in Brussels, Fiala said.

“In general, I can perhaps say that, for example, decoupling electricity prices from the cost of gas is one of the paths we can consider,” he told reporters.

Czech officials are proposing to cap prices of natural gas used for power generation, Industry and Trade Minister Jozef Sikela said earlier Monday.

“We may open the question of emission allowances, as some other member states have done in past, that also present a major part of the total price,” Sikela said.

“We may open the question of the overall market regulation, total decoupling of the prices,” he added, while cautioning that the bloc cannot meddle too much with the market or fuel speculation.

EU member states have already earmarked about 280 billion euros ($279 billion) in measures such as tax cuts and subsidies to ease the pain of surging energy prices for businesses and consumers, but the aid risks being dwarfed by the scale of the crisis.

Governments have also started to limit energy use, banning outside lighting for buildings in Germany and lowering indoor heating temperatures, to meet the EU voluntary target of cutting gas demand by 15%.

Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo said Monday that it’s time for the EU to act.

“I really think that we should intervene because that cost of uncertainty is really becoming impossible,” De Croo said at an energy conference in Stavanger, Norway. “I believe that we should intervene and from my country we have been advocating price caps in the gas market and the wholesale price market for a long time. This is a short-term solution, a temporary intervention.”

France last week reacted skeptically to the idea of setting limits on power prices, saying its situation is different from other European countries thanks to government measures offering protection against inflation.

(Updates with market moves, Uniper starting in 10th paragraph)

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