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The Minister of Energy sits up straight in his own visitor chair in the service room. He talks about his own supervisory authority, the Energy Market Inspection (Ei), with which he ended up on a collision course.
– The record in theory entitles them. The track record actually speaks to that, I’m right, says Anders Ygeman.
Ei totally cut your bill which is based on an agreement with the power grid companies that will give more effect to the power grids in Skåne.
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The agreement has recently been turned into a bill that will go to the Riksdag. Simplified, Ygeman gave power grid companies permission to take with them previously unclaimed income totaling SEK 28 billion over the next 12 years, in exchange for investing in power grids.
In response to the inquiry, Ei wrote: “Since power grid companies already receive coverage for their investments under current regulation, the proposed regulations will only lead to higher profits in power grid operations.”
– I think that the Energy Market Inspectorate is wrong, says Anders Ygeman, pointing out that the electricity grid companies have won the legal proceedings against Ei for almost 30 years and, therefore, have been able to raise prices.
He comes too with a novelty it turns out to be explosive. DN reveals in a related article that the Svenska kraftnät authority already solves the energy problem in Skåne until 2024 for a fraction of the sums that power grid companies can get in additional revenue: 20 million SEK.
But Svenska kraftnät’s package is based on Eon’s participation and payment for certain parts. When DN asks Ygeman if his billion dollar deal with the power grid companies is needed, he responds:
– I don’t think we would have solved the capacity problems in Skåne without this agreement.
What do you mean?
– There are several things that the owner of the Eon network pays for in the Svenska kraftnät package. They would not have done it without our joint initiative.
Therefore, Eon threatened to refuse to expand the effect on Skåne along with Svenska kraftnät if they did not meet their demands for additional billions in revenue, which Ygeman has now introduced as a bill.
Is it reasonable for a power grid company with a 51 percent profit margin on a monopoly grid to act this way?
– No, that’s not fair.
It is now clear that, however, it has opted for a new strategy towards the electricity grid companies: dialogue and cooperation instead of legal proceedings.
It is a total investment. Rep. Ibrahim Baylan used the team’s weapon to cut prices by 20 percent, and thereby the revenue of power companies. Recently, the government also amended the Electricity Law so that power grid companies could not defer previous earnings. This is what is breaking Ygeman’s new bill.
It defends itself from going directly against the previous position of the government.
– No, power grid companies can now use previous unused revenue, provided they make investments and contribute an additional 25 percent.
But Ei says it will only generate additional profits for power grid companies. Commentary?
– I mean they are wrong. Your opinion is based on ignoring legitimate opinions and winning in court. Basically I am proud of this deal.
One of the leading Swedish experts in the field, Emeritus Professor Stefan Yard from Lund University’s Faculty of Economics, noted in his consultation statement that the Ygeman bill would lead to “in principle all network companies utilities can use the unused income limits without increasing their investments. “
Is Professor Stefan Yard wrong too?
– I have not read exactly what you wrote, but if it is about this we make a different assessment.
The Skåne-dominated power grid company is Eon Energidistribution, whose operating profit margin in 2019 was 51%.
What is the appropriate level of residence? 10 percent?
– It’s even a bit noisy. There, I basically share the position of the Energy Market Inspection. The problem is how to get there.
You cannot answer when Eon Energidistribution may have a profit margin of less than 10 percent and exactly how it should go.
But he says he believes in a broader dialogue, without legal proceedings.
But you have the opportunity to make laws, which is the basis of the judgments of the courts. You can not do that?
– We have done it for these 26 years. I don’t think it is a good arrangement for us to sit in one tower and legislate, that the electric companies sit in another and appeal to our laws and to the consumers to sit next to them and pay.
– The next step is legislation where everyone has a common image of what the legislation should provide, where not everyone has gotten everything they want, but where everyone can live with the result.
If this doesn’t work. Would you be open to nationalization?
– Yes of course. If you have a situation where the power grid companies have no capacity for customers and they don’t expand the power grids and they make big profits.
Are you open to it?
– Yes, sure, but we are not there.
Who will control?
– Politics must rule. But we must have the tools to do so so that the judges do not control de facto, as has happened.
