Greece's independent power regulator, officially called the "Operator of Electricity Market", this week announced that state-owned Public Power Corp.'s (PPC) market share rose by 0.22 percent last month, month-on-month, to reach a dominating 85.77 percent of the total.
The figures overturned a trend over the first five months of 2017, whereby PPC's market share was being reduced by one percentage point, on average, every month.
Even with the continued decrease in the January to May period, the reduction was viewed as insufficient to reach the memorandum-mandated goal of a 75.24 percent market share by PPC until the end of the year. Nevertheless, PPC's gains in June and July have essentially jeopardized the target of reducing its market share in favor of private sector electricity suppliers.
The roughly 15-percent share of the Greek electricity market is currently divvied up by Protergia and Heron (3.42 percent each), followed by Elpedison, 3.29 percent. The other producers hover at around 1 percent of market share, or less.
According to market analysts, one reason for PPC's still solid market share is the fact that alternative suppliers have mostly reached a saturation point in terms of snagging "medium voltage" clients, such as small manufacturing units, super markets and stores.
