OCU calls for social bond to become a real social tariff for consumers

Following the appearance in Parliament of the new Energy Minister, Álvaro Nadal, OCU demands the improvement of the Social Security so that it reaches all the households that currently have the right to it and that in addition to coverage to the families that by Their level of income are in really precarious situations. 

Regarding the financing, OCU values positively that the electric companies that assume the cost of the Social Bonus as just proposed by the Minister of Energy, Álvaro Nadal. Nonetheless, it considers it reasonable and a measure that helps to promote the lack of competition in the sector, which are the groups that have benefited most from the process of liberalization of this sector by inheriting 100% of the customers distributed by its group, that cover this service, as it already happens in the telecommunications sector with the Universal Service. 

In any case, OCU demands a greater effort to the Ministry to avoid that the norm on who costs the Social Bond, is challenged for a third time in the courts. 

The debate about who supports the Social Bond does not avoid the fundamental problem, OCU calls for an urgent reform of the social bond, a necessary instrument to alleviate energy poverty and that helps to cover the needs of those in more precarious situations. The problem of energy poverty affects thousands of families in Spain. For OCU, the current social bond is not a real social rate insofar as it exists for its concession, which does not have to do exclusively with the income of the families. OCU believes that there is also insufficient information and many households entitled to this rate do not have access to it, so a large number of families who are in a precarious situation and with serious difficulties to pay their energy supply can not request it. 

In addition to the OCU social bond, it is necessary to take other measures to prevent and treat energy poverty situations (regulation of the management of energy cuts, periods of limitation thereof or actions of the administrations to guarantee the supply to the most disadvantaged) , Which unfortunately affect thousands of families. For more information: https://www.ocu.org/vivienda-y-energia/gas-luz/noticias/bono-social-reforma