en 
"This proposal was sent to economic operators in both sectors, for an audience of interested parties", says the regulator in a statement, advancing that "the objective is to ensure greater flexibility in the operation in the market, without increased costs or risks for energy consumers”.
The proposed measures - which should be in force until the end of the first half of 2022 - "also allow to avoid any problems with the exit of suppliers from the market, as well as to ensure easier access to energy supply".
“At the same time, they preserve competition in the energy market, limiting any adverse impacts on the liberalisation of the sector through an adequate containment of possible systemic risks”, the report adds.
ERSE explains that the proposals with “extraordinary measures of action” in the National Electric System (SEN) and in the National Gas System (SNG) were sent to economic operators result from the “current context of the energy markets, both nationally and Iberian and European”.
"The functioning of the wholesale electricity and natural gas markets presents a repeated occurrence of historically high prices and in values that, in a simplified way, are more than three times higher than those registered in early 2021 and in previous years".
According to the regulator, "this unprecedented rise in prices and high volatility significantly impacts the activity of most agents in the sector, in particular suppliers who, through their specific activity, ensure the connection between the wholesale and retail benchmarks in the energy market”.
"The ERSE has always been actively committed to implementing a healthy model of liberalisation of the electricity and natural gas sectors, promoting in a coordinated manner the defense of consumers' interests and the promotion of competition in the market, largely through the entry of new agents”.
In fact "a very significant part of the motivation for the implementation of contracting mechanisms and the corresponding promotion of liquidity was precisely aimed at this development of the market."
In the current context, the ERSE says that the proposed extraordinary measures aim to "lessen the effect that the serious price situation in the wholesale market has on the Portuguese market, preventing, whenever possible, the loss of diversity due to the departure of agents" and containing "risks systems”.
The regulator clarifies that these measures “have a shorter-term temporal focus and do not represent an increase in risks or burdens for electricity or natural gas consumers”.
In the medium and long term "the natural adaptation of market agents will refocus, as necessary, their respective performance, which justifies that the measures now envisaged have a limited temporal reach, until the end of the first half of 2022".
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So, more people will be dying of cold and mould this coming winter in Portugal because keeping Portuguese housing warm and dry in winters is only for the very wealthy? The government must be rubbing its hands with glee - less miserable pensions to pay out, more land and housing to sell to foreigners.
By K from Algarve on 01 Oct 2021, 19:21
To tackle this pb, we should start by making it normal standard during construction of new houses to use the same insulation methods as the central Europe and Northern countries. That alone would cut most of the energy waste(if a house has better insulating materials within its walls, then it stands to reason it will insulate it better during both cold/hot temperature peaks). I remember my Dutch teacher(who´s married to a Pt lady and they have a child) commenting on how absurdly expensive houses are here(and this was 2012) considering they don´t protect you the way houses(even old ones) in places like (for eg) Brussels do.
Here in Pt having a house made that way will cost a huge fortune. Also, the bill for having well warmed house even though it snows outside in these countries(Belgium, The Netherlands) isn´t exorbitant(meaning: no one has to be rich in order to feel well at home, temperature and energy costs-wise). Here we really suffer.
So this won´t even begin to leave a dent at solving the(much bigger) problem. The pb will persist, these measures won´t be enough.
By guida from Lisbon on 02 Oct 2021, 06:34
Portugal's house prices are unacceptable high! So, improving their houses insulation, where the climate so ditactes, would make them even less affordable for those who need them most, the people living in the Northern two thirds of the country, including Porto and, alas, even Lisbon! Unfortunately, the successive socialist governments obtuse and guided by ignorance and opportunistic moron put the country's energy police priorities elsewhere! I live in Canada and when I spend winter vacations in Portugal I feel the humid cold and it's effects much more vividly than where I live where winter time temperatures are often in the negative double digits! Due to mismanagement and corruption Portugal energy prices are also incredible high despite the country being blessed by wonderfully natural climate conditions to produce plenty of cheap green energy - hydraulic, solar, eolic and geothermal. But nowadays most of those resources are owned by foreign interests which priorities don't necessarily coincide with the well being of the people! The successive socialist governments seriously aggravated the current situation and future perspectives of safe, clean and sustainable energy by obtusely abdicating from the greenest form of them all, the nuclear, and ignore the fact that Portugal has some reserves of uranium, the most used nuclear fuel! Even with the Spanish and French examples next door the Portuguese leaders kept their eyes shut and decided for "politically correct" options . The population is so misinformed about nuclear energy reality that the most challenging part of the job will be to restore among the Portuguese an intelligent, rational, balanced and sound approach to nuclear energy as an option for Portugal.
By Tony Fernandes from Other on 03 Oct 2021, 18:18
guida, you are right that insulation can work well and make cost of warming very low even in freezing cold northern lands. But even in Finland in comes with an increased risk of mold inside the walls. Portugal is very high moisture and one should consider the risks of modern materials with that. Mold on the surface of stone is way easier to fix then inside insulation materials.
By K. Lehto from Other on 03 Oct 2021, 21:16