Extraordinary support of one billion euros for the cost of natural gas was recently announced by the Portuguese government. This is a measure to protect companies and activities in the social sectors!

This measure is part of the Extraordinary Support for Electricity and Natural Gas package and will come into force to help companies with energy costs.

This happens because of the huge increase in the price of gas and fuel. In fact, the increase is due to external crises in the energy markets.

Furthermore, this Support comes into force from January 2023 and is officially the largest State intervention in the Portuguese energy market.

As mentioned, this support comes as a response to the increase in the price of natural gas. Thus, this is a consequence of a change in the international energy market.

Consequently, inflation rates rose sharply throughout the European Union economy, not just Portugal. As the scenario is still uncertain, this support comes to mitigate the effects of this crisis.

Furthermore, it stimulates the national energy transition. Furthermore, support for the cost of natural gas adds to a series of other aid that has come since the beginning of 2022 to bring economic balance to the country.

Such as, for example, support for gas-intensive industries and the return to regulated tariffs in the gas market.

Firstly, the beneficiaries of this new Support are companies from different sectors. However, in this case, some sectors are prevented from receiving aid.

Furthermore, for companies to take advantage of the help, they need to be consumers of large amounts of natural gas at high, medium and low pressure. However, this consumption needs to be greater than 10 thousand m³. 

On the other hand, social sector entities that also fall under this spending scheme will be able to request support for the cost of natural gas.

Thus, in practice, the benefit will work as a discount of approximately 42 euros per MWh. Furthermore, this amount does not include taxes. 

Some entities and companies cannot benefit from natural gas support. Thus, among them, the following are included:

Firstly, one of the main objectives of this support is to protect society from the increase in the cost of natural gas. Therefore, the protection of both families and companies is essential.

Furthermore, maintaining the internal and external competitiveness of companies is fundamental for the economy.

Therefore, support for natural gas also increases the resilience and competitiveness of companies that use so much natural gas.

By protecting and helping companies, the government maintains job creation and allows the economy to continue functioning, while the crisis situation abroad does not improve the energy scenario.

Furthermore, this ends up affecting the final cost of several products that could previously be more expensive to support the value of gas.

In other words, the final beneficiary is always the Portuguese citizen, even if the aid is initially intended for companies and entities.

Payment of support for the cost of natural gas is retroactive. In other words, the amount is only refunded after the company has invoiced and paid the bill.

Therefore, the discount must be identified on the following month's gas bill. Therefore, as the program starts in January 2023, the first payment will be made in February 2023.

And, consequently, the last one will be carried out in January 2024. Thus, the support is directly related to 80% of the customer's average consumption.

In addition, customers must meet gas consumption reduction targets. It is worth mentioning that the amount of investment in this aid is one billion euros, which should mitigate the worsening of the crisis.

Now that you've seen how extraordinary support for natural gas works, how about finding out more about a benefit offered to companies.

Thus, the Sustainable Employment Commitment is a measure of Portugal's Recovery and Resilience Plan. The objective of this initiative is to increase diversity and encourage the hiring of socially vulnerable people.

In this way, the government pays part of the contractor's salary, reducing the company's expenses. The more characteristics the employee has within the profile in the notice, the more money the company can receive.

So, if you want to know how to subscribe to this project, click on the link below and check out our step by step guide!