While the authorities discuss consumer protection measures by awarding subsidies, suppliers notify them to pay exorbitant prices.
Such a recent notification of a supplier presents the price that the consumer must pay starting with November 2021, respectively 900 lei / MWh, ie a colossal price increase of not less than 741% compared to last year, show newspapers .com.
“This approach indicates that the way in which consumers want to be protected in Romania must be carefully analyzed, because both consumer subsidization and capping (in fact subsidizing suppliers) will not achieve their goal,” said, following this case, the president Intelligent Energy Association (AEI), Dumitru Chisaliţă.
What happens if the suppliers increase the price of MW / h gas to values such as those contained in the notification submitted, in case:
- “The 25% consumer subsidy is insignificant aid. For example: a consumer who paid, last year, 107 lei / MWh, respectively 500 lei / month, VAT included, if (attention only if he is a household consumer and consumes 1,000 cubic meters / cold season 2021/2022 – in a hard winter few will fall within this limit -) will pay, monthly, for gas at a price of 900 lei / MWh the amount of 4,205 lei / month, of which the state will compensate 1,051 lei / month, ie it has to pay 3,153 lei / month (a 620% increase in the monthly cost of gas);
- capping the price with the supplier’s subsidy to pay the difference between the purchase price and the supplier’s selling price, starting from the supplier’s declaration that he pays 715 lei / MWh for the purchased gases and the capped price is 135 lei / MWh, means that the state must pay the supplier 580 lei / MWh, respectively for a bill of 500 lei / month for gas should pay the supplier 2,277 lei / month. If we consider that in a winter month, Romania’s consumption for household consumers who would benefit from these conditions is 0.5 billion cubic meters, the amount that the state must take out of pocket would be 0.6 billion euros / month, at a purchase-sale price difference of 580 lei / MWh ”, Chisaliţă explained.
The prices of 700 – 900 lei / MWh for natural gas appeared in the market according to the authorities’ plans to reduce the impact of the increase in gas and electricity prices for consumers, an aspect that proves that any action has a reaction in the field.
The realization of an Energy Emergency Measures Plan, proposed by AEI in July 2021, aimed precisely at the realization of a set of measures starting from the causes that determined the prices to increase and, especially, from the fact that the measures had to be applied progressively, following the way they work and intervening immediately when those measures do not work by launching new measures or adapting existing ones.
“This could be done at a time when time was not an issue (ie in July – September 2021). The desire to collect money in that period in the budget, from these increases in energy prices, from consumers made to do nothing and to find ourselves in this situation today “, concluded the president of AEI.
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