site.btaHousehold Customers May Enter Free Market for Electricity on May 1, 2016

Household Customers May Enter Free Market for Electricity on May 1, 2016

Sofia, February 29 (BTA) - Household customers in Bulgaria will be able to enter the free market for electricity as from May 1, 2016, BTA learnt from Plamen Mladenovski, Head of the Price Regulation and Licences: Electricity Networks, Trading and Markets Department of the Energy and Water Regulatory Commission (EWRC).

The three electricity distribution companies have until April 1, 2016 to implement the standardized load profiles they have offered. EVN has offered nine load profiles, CEZ eight profiles, and ENERGO-PRO seven profiles. Under an EWRC decision, they will be published on the distributors' websites.

To go on the liberalized market, household customers will have to conclude a contract with a new electricity provider and then notify their previous provider, in a standard form valid for all three electricity distribution companies, that they will no longer require its services. The transfer to a new provider will be at no charge to customers, Mladenovski stressed.

Household customers are not obliged to enter the free market after April 1 even though they can do so, the expert explained. The present regulated electricity price for them will apply until June 30, 2016, after which the EWRC will approve an electricity price for the new regulatory period, July 1, 2016 to June 30, 2017.

A regulated electricity price will probably continue to exist for at least several more years, Mladenovski commented. He does not expect the accessibility of the free market for electricity to attract much interest at the beginning because it will not bring a tangible financial advantage.

"At the beginning, these will be rather thrill-seeking people who wish to test the system," the expert noted. In his words, judging from the experience in other countries, entry into the free market on a more massive scale takes between three and five years.