Electricity traders in Croatia are dissatisfied with HEP’s monopoly that is enforced by regulation which determined that energy expense is 10 times bigger than in all neighbor countries.
Dejan Paravan, Executive Director of Gen-I, said that Croatian market is formally opened, but HEP still holds 98% of market share. According to his opinion, such situation won’t last very long, and the problem is in regulation obstacles that are preventing development of the market. “Mechanism for harmonization price calculating does not function and therefore the price of this energy is 10 times higher than at other markets. Trade won’t develop until this is changed, or new players comes”, Paravan said and added that there are no stronger players at the market except for Gen-I and Korlea.
Gorazd Skubin agreed with this opinion. He leads Petrol’s sector for electricity. He warned that Slovenian market hadn’t functioned for a very long time and Petrol hadn’t decided for electricity supply of pump in Croatia exactly because of the way for energy harmonization payment.
Zeljko Rajic, Director of Eletricity Sector in HERA said that HERA introduced many changes in its energy harmonization calculation way so they continue to work on improvement of methodology in a way that real expenses of transmission system operator will be linked to the amount suppliers pay. Both Paravan and Skubin have agreed to improve Croatian electricity market after EU accession on condition to set these obstacles away.
18 electricity traders work in Croatia at the moment, 12 suppliers have been registered and only 9 of them are active. Electricity suppliers need to have company registered in Croatia now in order to give supply service and after EU accession procedures will be easier work of companies from EU countries.
Director of HROTE, Ivor Zupanic, announced that Croatian electricity stock Cropex will launch work until the end of the year. Connection to other markets is also being worked on, especially to Slovenia and Hungary. Croatia expressed some interest for PCR (price coupling of regions), too.
