Consistent PPC customers to get rate cut
Greece’s main electricity utility, Public Power Corporation (PPC), is attempting to defend its market position against growing competition by reducing its electricity rates by 15 percent for consistent domestic and corporate consumers as of July 1, Manolis Panayiotakis, the company’s chairman and chief executive, told a parliamentary committee on Tuesday.
“We are examining and have processed a plan so that next Wednesday at the board meeting we decide in favor of reducing rates for consistent and commercial clients by 15 percent,” said the PPC chief. He added that the corporation’s plan was “an incentive for consumers to enter payment plans,” linking the discount to improving debt collection.
By “consistent,” PPC means households which pay their bills on time and those who have entered a payment plan to pay off their dues, which translates into almost all of its household cutomers. There are some 145,000 consumers who have joined payment plans involving a sum of 430 million euros.
The discount is actually the result of the rapidly growing competition in the retail market. In April the growth rate of the alternative suppliers’ market share amounted to 19 percent, taking their combined share to 8.6 percent. Unofficial market data take this share in May to 10 percent, which had been the original target for the end of 2016.
