The high impact of the strong increase in electricity prices in industrial sectors has led Televisión Española (TVE) to record and broadcast a report on the costs and effects that this situation has had on Catalan cement factories. The information, issued for the first time in the TVE News of Friday, October 29, has revealed that the electricity bill for a factory triples the budgets made at the beginning of the year.
It must be taken into account that a production plant can consume more than 120 GWh / year (120,000 MWh / year), and that electrical costs account for approximately 54% of the variable costs of cement manufacturing. This situation is causing an increase of more than 25% in total factory production costs. To face the problem, Ciment Català considers that structural changes are needed in the electricity market, applying exemptions and reducing taxes on industries, among other measures. Currently, for Catalan industries, the price of MWh is 46% higher than in Germany and 150% higher than in France.
The excessive rise in the price of electricity is added to the also constant increase in the amount of CO2 emission rights, which this year have doubled and have exceeded € 60 per ton. These incidences on production costs limit the competitiveness of Catalan industry in international markets, since there are plants in many countries that do not suffer the effects of the shortage of electricity, nor are they subject to environmental regulations as demanding as those of here, so they are able to make cement at a much lower cost.