The Energy Services Regulatory Authority (ERSE) is working on instruments to help consumers choose the most competitive suppliers of butane gas cylinders, the regulator’s president said today in parliament.
“We are improving a set of information that will better guide consumers to, in fact, exercise their right to choose a bottle supplier, the cheapest bottles and those that are compatible”, stated the president of the Board of Directors of ERSE, Pedro Verdelho, during a hearing at the Environment and Energy Commission.
The objective, he highlighted, is to “encourage consumers to exercise their choice” in a context in which – contrary to what happens with fuels – consumer prices for LPG (liquefied petroleum gas), namely butane gas, have been above the “efficient price” on the market determined by ERSE.
“No [gás] propane, which is widely used by industry, things are relatively favorable. But regarding the [gás] butane we still have some problems, some differences, which lead us to pay attention to this situation”, he stated.
Pedro Verdelho explained that the butane LPG network “is very capillary and long, because it reaches all locations, which has costs”, and, in fact, “it is not exactly a physical network”, as in gas or electricity, but “a virtual network”.
“But we are improving instruments to facilitate [a escolha] to consumers. Very soon we will have a ‘dashboard’ [painel] that will allow it”, he maintained.
Although admitting that “the question of reducers [das garrafas de gás butano] can represent a barrier to change”, the president of ERSE noted that “there are a series of reducers from various companies that are perfectly compatible”: “We will identify this, so that it is possible for consumers to change companies, particularly those where the reducers are compatible”, he said.
In this regard, Pedro Verdelho also highlighted that “any price intervention in the market always has harmful effects”, which is why the regulator seeks to “calibrate these two dimensions”.
With regard to electricity prices in Portugal, the official highlighted that they are currently “14% below the euro area” in the domestic residential segment and “35% below” in industry, while in natural gas, with the country “close to the Atlantic basin, prices are 14% below for the residential segment and 11% below for the industrial segment”.
“Regarding fuel, our prices, without taxes, are lower than those in Spain, both for gasoline and diesel,” Pedro Verdelho also told deputies on the Environment and Energy Committee.
With regard to exceptional revisions of electricity tariffs, necessary when it is necessary to adapt the energy tariff and network access tariffs (TAR) to market conditions, the president of ERSE said that the regulator’s strategy has been to try to reduce price volatility in the short term “by selling production in installments at guaranteed prices”.
“In 2024 we had a huge problem in terms of diversion and we had to act, [pelo que] We use an exceptional review mechanism. [Mas] We are, from a medium/long term perspective, increasing the firmness of these contracts for differences by carrying out long-term auctions, in order to reduce this volatility and dispense with exceptional tariff reviews as a last resort”, he explained.
However, he stressed, this “is a process that has to be gradual”.
The post Competitive Choice of Butane Gas Suppliers appeared first on Veritas News.
