Bulgaria: Producers of cheap electricity request increase of price for industrial consumers

Published on 24. January 2014., SEE Energy News

State-owned power stations Kozloduy NPP and Maritsa East 2 TPP have requested that industrial consumers, required under Bulgarian law to buy electricity on the liberalized market, agree for an upward revision of prices in their power-buying contracts. The nuclear power plant and the thermal station are currently the biggest generations on the liberalized market, selling the cheapest energy.

The Bulgarian Federation of Industrial Energy Consumers (BFIEC), backed by the Bulgarian Association of the Metallurgical Industry (BAMI) and the Bulgarian Chamber of Chemical Industry (BCCI), released a statement on Sunday, criticising the proposal and calling for the Bulgarian Energy Holding, the parent structure of the above-mentioned power stations, to reconsider it.

“The planned electricity price hike will hit Bulgaria’s biggest industrial entities, vital for its economy, along with some 3000 small and medium enterprises”, BFIEC explained in its statement.

Unlike many European countries relying on long-term contracts, businesses in Bulgaria are buying electricity under one year contracts most of which are due to expire by June 30, 2014, BFIEC said.

“Re-negotiating of the contracts will further worsen the already fragile trust in the liberalised market, especially for these 3000 new participants who joined it in the recent months”, the statement reads further.

BFIEC affirmed that the proposed upward revision of electricity prices for the business confirms the already existing impression that the Bulgarian Energy Holding “intends to finance deficits in the energy system of the country through the industrial prices”.

Source; Serbia Energy See Desk