Bulgarian households and small businesses will have the right to choose their electricity supplier freely as of July, 2016, at the earliest, Ivan Ivanov, chairperson of the Energy and Water Regulatory Commission (EWRC) said last week. The commission will need more time to analyse whether the full market liberalisation would lead to higher electricity prices of electricity, trud.bg reported. The electricity market liberalisation for households and small businesses was first announced for January 1, 2016.
"We will keep households on the regulated market next year as well, so that we can protect them from electricity prices fluctuations”, Ivanov said, as quoted by Darik Radio.
Ivanov however pointed out that the market liberalisation in neighbouring Romania actually led to a drop in electricity prices with as much as 40 percent. He pointed out that households and small businesses are currently paying BGN 125 per MWh (EUR 60.25/MWh) according to the regulated tariff, while the medium and large businesses which have access to the liberalised market pay an average of BGN 90/MWh.
What is more, the regulator mulls a reintroduction of the so called "obligations to society" fee in the price of export-bound electricity. Prior experience with this practice has brought Bulgarian power exports close to a complete halt. Nevertheless, Ivanov considers that the regulatory commission will find a way to charge the fee to exported electricity without making it uncompetitive to electricity from other countries.
(www.publics.bg)
