The Iberian mechanism agreed with Brussels to cap the gas price has achieved an average reduction in the electricity bill of 32% for customers whose receipts are linked to the PVPC regulated price. which represents an average of 209 euros per household, according to a report by EsadeEcPol on the effects of the Iberian exception.
This is the conclusion reached by analysts in the second installment of the monitoring carried out on the effect of the measure since its entry into force on June 15, 2022. The impact for the Spanish economy as a whole would be a saving of between 2,100 million euros, if the 10 million households with the regulated tariff estimated in January 2022 are taken into account, and 1,880 million if the 9 million families that had a regulated tariff in August of last year are taken as a reference.
In turn, the measure has had a measurable impact on the macroeconomy. The study analysts, Ángel Martínez and Javier Martínez, have carried out the exercise of calculating the impact that the measure has had on the evolution of inflation. In this sense, the report yields two notable results. The first quantifies an impact of the measure from June 15 to the end of December of about five tenths. In other words, without the measure in that period, inflation would have climbed to 9.1%, compared to the 8.6% that it marked with it in place.
In terms of annual averages, the effect of the mechanism is a reduction in inflation of 0.3 percentage points. In other words, the CPI closed at 8.4%, compared to the 8.7% that it would have reached, according to analysts, without the application of the mechanism. "These results are especially relevant in view of the leveling effect that electricity has had on inflation among the different income groups in 2022," the study points out.
In other words, just as the rise in electricity prices since 2021 has hit the most vulnerable households the hardest, because in them the weight of this expense is percentage-wise greater than in the more affluent incomes, the reduction that has allowed the Iberian mechanism has also had a greater impact. Specifically, it has subtracted 1.59 points from the CPI supported by them. Meanwhile, in the most affluent households the reduction in the supported CPI remained at 0.76 points.
Some positive effects that could have been much greater if it were not for what EsadeEcPol considers a distorting element of the mechanism. The fact that its implementation and the consequent reduction in the price of electricity can be considered "a key factor in the increase in Spanish electricity exports to France, since it is likely that without it similar levels of exports would not have been registered ”.
EsadeEcPol's thesis is that France would not have squeezed the interconnection capacity and would not have bought so much electricity from Spain if the price had not been lower (artificially due to the mechanism). This increase in demand is, in turn, what has caused an increase in electricity demand in the Spanish system as a whole and what has forced a greater use of gas for electricity generation, which has made the final price of production more expensive. electricity above what the Spanish would have paid if only the demand of Spain and Portugal had been met.
In any case, analysts acknowledge that this "potential conflict" between savings for the Spanish and European economies peaked in summer (due to the lack of rain, which reduced the usual production of hydroelectric power in the Iberian Peninsula) and fell starting in the fall.
