The electricity invoice will drop some 7-10 per cent by the end of the year, Minister Delegate for Energy Constantin Nita told at Energy Business Summit on Thursday, Agerpres informs.
‘Some measures that we took mainly in the green certificate area have not been very welcomed or friendly especially towards the investors in this area, but this brings us a reduction in the invoice value starting July 1, after the estimated calculations ANRE supplied us [the National Energy Regulatory Authority], of 4.75 per cent. In my opinion, by the end of the year the invoice will drop some 7-10 per cent,’ Nita said.
According to him, the economic efficiency also concerns the hydro, nuclear and natural gas sectors.
‘All need to keep within the market demands. Who does not keep within these margins, as provide the market economy rules, will die. Only the efficient one endures. Our duty in terms of energy policy is to produce as cheap as possible and to ensure the country’s energy security. This thing will probably surge from the new energy strategy we are preparing,’ Nita explained.
On the other hand, according to National Energy Regulatory Authority (ANRE), the electricity invoice value will decrease 5 per cent on average in August, following the state’s postponing the granting of a number of green certificates to the renewable energy producers, as well as to the 1.3 per cent decline in the price of electricity supplied to final consumers. Also, natural gas prices will go up 2-3 per cent for non-household consumers on October 1, Chairman of ANRE Niculae Havrilet told in the same specialist conference.
‘Annual consumption in Romania of natural gas cannot be covered from domestic production, and that is why part of it is covered by imports. The imports come from just one source that is unilaterally setting the prices. Natural gas price liberalisation is aimed at achieving convergence between the price for domestic natural gas and imported gas. There have been favourable developments here. A drop in industrial consumption by some percentage points allowed a cut in gas imports,’ said Havrilet. He added that because imports fell, pressure on the final prices as a result of applying the liberalisation calendars was no longer as bad as initially expected.
‘Total price increase in 2013 should stand at 18 per cent in the case of non-household consumers, but the increase now is just 8 per cent. By July 1, in two increase steps according to the calendar it should have been 15 per cent rise in the final price. Only 5 per cent was achieved. Another 5-per cent increase as from July 1 ended at 3 per cent. So this means 8 per cent was achieved, leaving another rise by 2-3 percentage points for an October liberalisation. The year will end with a total increase of 10-11 percentage points in the prices for the non-household sector, compare with 18 per cent, as initially establish under calendars,’ Havrilet explained.
Constantin Nita, Minister Delegate for Energy said the number of transactions on OPCOM will increase significantly in the interval ahead as a result of the announced liberalisation of the energy market, as of January 1, 2004. ‘The reality showed us that we must fit into the market. Unfortunately we began this process with great difficulty and as it develops it seems like more problems will appear. We see now exactly how efficiently we work, we see now the manner in which the companies producing energy functioned and function. Their efficiency determines the price on the market. We have the OPCOM that functions very well. OPCOM has grown this year up to about EUR 600 M and I thing it will still grow. And this is only due to the liberalisation of the market announced for January 1, 2014,’ said Nita.
According to him, the process of liberalisation of the energy market showed that the price on the commodities exchange was falling. The emergency ordinance for establishing the system of promoting the energy production from renewable sources has been recently adopted by the Government, the law providing that the green certificate recoup would be done starting March 31, 2017, for the hydro-power and solar-power plants, namely starting January 1, 2018, for the wind-power plants.
ANRE will be compelled to regulate through annual quotas the volume of electricity produced from renewable sources to be taken over in the National Power Grid.
In other context, a delegation from Korea is currently visiting Romania being interested in the reactors 3 and 4 of the Cernavoda nuclear power plant, according to Nita. As regards the underwater cable, the Minister specified that Romania is currently negotiating over the matter with Bulgaria and Turkey.
EC, not notified about the modification of the legislation of green energy
The provisions of the emergency ordinance that modifies the support scheme for renewable energy are in effect since July 1, although the regulation has not been notified to the European Commission and the delegate minister of Energy, Constantin Nita said that an informal notification was sent to the Competition Council, although Nita announced in May that, “in general lines,” the Commission agreed to the legal changes. “No such pre-notification has been received so far,” reads an EC document issued on June 24. Commission representatives say that the announcement made by Nita in May is incorrect and the notification is absent.
The EC asked the government to submit “consolidated” information about the legislation of state aid for renewable energy, but the data were not communicated.