The National Energy Regulatory Authority (ANRE) is preparing licensing orders, which could allow several electricity market operators to manage day-ahead or intraday electricity markets.
The new secondary legislation proposed by ANRE is the result of the amendments made last year to the Energy Law, which transposed several provisions of some European directives and regulations into the local legislation. Minister of Energy said last month, that OPCOM will no longer have a monopoly on the electricity sales market.
However, due to significant needed investments, especially becuase the new player will have to achieve coupling with neighboring markets, it is believed that there will not be many interested parties. ANRE is still undecided whether to allow the operation of uncoupled spot markets in the country.
The Romanian Commodity Exchange (BRM) looks like the most suitable candidate. Earlier this month, it launched a platform for negotiating and trading bilateral electricity supply contracts with a delivery duration greater than or equal to one month.
According to the BRM, long-term bilateral contracts are meant to fill the gap currently felt in the domestic electricity market. In addition, they have a decisive role in covering the risks of volatility of the price of electricity, visible in the last period of time.