In the next year and a half, EPS will have to make its work more effective, or the foreign traders and electricity producers could take a great number of its customers. The electricity market liberalization brings the severe competition and possibility that that customers could choose alone their supplier.
What changes wait for EPS and what for consumers in the next two years, when Serbia becomes part of an open electricity market?
In the Ministry of Energy warn that there is less and less time for Serbia Power Utility Company to be ready to participate in the competition.
“This means that all consumers choose their distributors, EPS has only a year and a half to prepare for the game in order to avoid the situation of losing customers, the market at medium voltage is opened, it’s about 320 companies , will EPS keep the companies remains to be seen “, said Zorana Mihajlovic, Minister of Energy.
EPS has already lost one customer. German company Messer turned to the favorable supplier, Slovenian Ghent. Could this be the case with some other foreign investors?
“I talked with the directors of other companies, who want to buy electricity at German market, and I think that EPS and Srbijagas need to stick to the principles that are applied elsewhere in the world, in order to maintain competitiveness”, said Antonio Cesare Ferrero, Director of Fiat cars in Serbia.
EPS is competitive also because, experts say, has its own production, so consequently to that large companies, trading chains and service stations, which are consumers at high and medium voltage, could offer a better deal than those who only trade in electricity. For consumers, more competition means more convenience. From 1st January 2015th each household will choose from whom will buy electricity.
By that moment the situation will be similar like you choose the mobile operator, which means that like this offers to us both internet and others packages, thus the same thing may be happen in 2015. that bill for TV program watching be joint with a package of spending electricity amount per month.
How much domestic power utility company would be ready to deal with regional and European competitors, it depends on how much effective makes its operation. To that also should contribute its converting into a shareholder company until the end of this year, which means that the state remains the majority owner, and the rest of the shares will receive the citizens. It means the beginning of EPS functioning towards the western system, which means that management and the Supervisory Board are responsible for the business decisions they make.
Source: Serbia Energy
