  Spectral line emissivities have usually been calculated for a Maxwellian
electron distribution. But many theoretical works on galaxy groups and clusters
and on the solar corona suggest to consider modified Maxwellian electron
distribution functions to fit observed X-ray spectra. Here we examine the
influence of high energy electron populations on measurements of metal
abundances. A generalized approach which was proposed in the paper by Prokhorov
et al. (2009) is used to calculate the line emissivities for a modified
Maxwellian distribution. We study metal abundances in galaxy groups and
clusters where hard X-ray excess emission was observed. We found that for
modified Maxwellian distributions the argon abundance decreases for the HCG 62
group, the iron abundance decreases for the Centaurus cluster and the oxygen
abundance decreases for the solar corona with respect to the case of a
Maxwellian distribution. Therefore, metal abundance measurements are a
promising tool to test the presence of high energy electron populations.
