site.btaMiners, Energy Workers Urge State to Halt Carbon Allowance Payments Until Carbon Capture Plants Are Built

The newly established non-profit association of miners and energy workers, titled "Miners and Energy Workers Together", tabled a declaration to the National Assembly, demanding that carbon capture plants are built, as this should enable the Maritsa East 2 Thermal Power Plant (TPP) to offer competitive pricing of the electricity it generates. The declaration was tabled by Stanimir Georgiev, head of the association, on Tuesday.

Explaining how those carbon capture plants will be financed, Georgiev told BTA that his association’s proposal is to stop carbon emission allowance payments charged from the coal-fired TPPs in the Maritsa Basin (Southeastern Bulgaria), so that the TPPs can finance the construction of the carbon capture plants themselves.

The miners and energy workers also propose that household consumers go to the free market as of January 1, 2030. "Currently, the biggest electricity consumer of is the household consumer and a number of traders are waiting for the household consumer to go to the free market where electricity price will increase," Georgiev noted, giving an example of Greece, where electricity price has increased by 60% in the last year.

In October 2023, Bulgaria’s Parliament amended the Energy Act removing the regulation of electricity prices for household users as of the beginning of 2026. As of January 1, 2026, households will have to go to the free market to buy their electricity and pay market prices.

The miners and energy workers are also displeased with draft amendments in the Energy Act, according to which the Maritsa East 2 TPP should produce some 2,200,000 MWh of electricity in 2025. In Georgiev's words, this means that the plant will have to produce an average of 254 megawatts per hour, while it currently produces no less than 350 megawatts.