EC opens probe into Greek utility PPC's wholesale power market bidding strategy

London — The European Commission has opened a formal antitrust investigation into Greece's majority state-owned power utility Public Power Corp., or PPC, EC executive vice president Margrethe Vestager said March 16.

PPC is by some way the largest supplier of retail and wholesale power in Greece, with a 49% generation market share and a 66% retail supply market share.

"Today we are launching an investigation of PPC's behaviour in wholesale electricity markets in Greece that might have distorted competition and slowed down investment into the generation of greener energy," Vestager said.

The EC said PPC "may have adopted predatory bidding strategies," hindering the ability of rivals to compete in wholesale and related power markets.

Greece had recently embarked on an ambitious plan to exit lignite generation, Vestager said.

"Ensuring effective competition is the best way to deliver competitively priced electricity, both for citizens and businesses, as well as to stimulate investment in less polluting energy sources," she said.

The investigation was unrelated to another EC probe into privileged access rights to lignite granted by the Greek state to PPC, the EC said.

There was no legal deadline for bringing an antitrust investigation to an end, it noted.

PPC controls all lignite and hydropower, as well as some natural gas and renewable power generation assets in the Greek market.

Greece's six remaining active lignite generation sites, totaling around 2.2 GW of installed capacity, are to be shut by 2023.

The country's last lignite plant in construction, PPC's 660 MW Ptolemaida V, is scheduled to cease generation from lignite in 2028, around six years after scheduled completion. Conversion to gas is being considered.