The National Commission for Markets and Competition (CNMC) is investigating possible irregularities in large electricity companies and for this reason inspectors from the regulatory body have visited the headquarters of the main large companies in the sector in Madrid and some delegations in the last week.
The news, which was announced this morning by El Confidencial, has only been officially confirmed by Endesa. The electricity company led by José Bogas has acknowledged the investigation and that “it is collaborating with the requirements of the Competition Agency”, but declined to confirm that the reason for the inspection is related to the practices of large companies to prevent a fluid connection of the facilities for self-consumption as the aforementioned medium points out.
The CNMC has not made any comment in this regard either. It is common for the workers of this regulator to visit the companies to verify the multiple complaints that come to the Competition each year, but the body does not make these preliminary inspections public. The usual practice is to report the opening of inspection files, in which reference is made to the sector but not to the companies directly affected, whose identity is only known once the disciplinary file is opened and both the sanctioned party and the company are identified. amount claimed for malpractice.
In this case, the investigation would still be in a very preliminary phase or linked to a file already open for another reason, in any case the body chaired by Cani Fernández does not comment on the news.
The latest price crisis in the electricity sector has positioned the sector as the leader in consumer complaints according to the Facua association and the CNMC has not been immune to this trend.
According to the statistics offered by Cani Fernández in the Congress of Deputies, last year the body processed 76 files in the field of energy, which is 66% more than in 2021.
Regarding the aforementioned self-consumption market, two weeks ago the Spanish Photovoltaic Union (UNEF) organized the III Self-Consumption and Energy Communities Summit in Madrid, in which veiled but also very direct criticism was heard openly that the large energy companies could be hindering the access to the network of small trading companies through administrative complication or unjustified delay.
Even the Minister for the Energy Transition, Teresa Ribera, picked up on this feeling of ill-being of small companies. “I share the indignation”, she assured at the opening of the event and asked the large distributors to facilitate the connection of new plants even “when the promoters are external companies”.
None of these companies shared in that event that they had filed a claim with the CNMC for undermining competition. In any case, that would be just one of the many reasons why the CNMC could have sent its bloodhounds to the big electric companies.
Among other things, because it also has open investigations such as the investigation of thirty small marketers for alleged speculation with the Iberian exception. “You never know. These files are very complex and investigating a company for one reason can lead to other types of surprises”, explains a source from the electricity sector.
Iberdrola, Naturgy, Endesa and Hola Luz already received a public notice from the CNMC last March in which they were obliged to improve their transparency in the procedure of informing customers who initiate processes for changes of ownership of their receipts after a sharp increase in complaints from individuals for confusion in this field.
It should also be remembered that a CNMC investigation does not necessarily lead to a sanction. On December 14, it was also leaked that CNMC investigators had entered the headquarters of Repsol, Cepsa and BP to investigate possible incorrect practices by these companies in the application of fuel discounts that were in force during 2022 within anti-war aid package approved by the Government. Then the investigated denied any irregularity and the file or, at least, the information about it has remained, until now, in the drawer of memories.
