site.btaBulgaria Has Exorbitant Price for Balancing Electricity, Expert Tells BTA

The price of balancing electricity in Bulgaria is, on the whole, very high, Dr Eng. Dimitar Beleliev, Chairman of the Management Board of the Bulgarian Association of Electrical Engineering and Electronics (BASEL), said in a BTA interview.  

He commented on the prices of up to BGN 2,684.50/MWh for excess and up to BGN 6,342/MWh for deficit, which were reached in May and were cited in an open letter by the Free Energy Market Association and the Association of Traders with Energy in Bulgaria. Subsequently, the Energy and Water Regulatory Commission (EWRC) adopted a decision on applying a one-off compensation mechanism for the extremely high prices reached on the balancing electricity market on May 19, 2024.

Among the reasons for the spike, Beleliev listed the impossibility to balance the system and a desire to maintain financially the state-owned Maritsa East coal mines and Maritsa East 2 TPP. The interviewee pointed out that the balancing prices in May were over ten times the normal levels, as a result of which the balancing groups incurred huge unforeseen costs and invoiced most of them to the producers of electricity from renewable sources. In the expert's opinion, the EWRC's decision is partial and will not substantially decrease the balancing groups' costs. He is certain that the spike will recur even in July and argued that problems in the system should be addressed first and any methodologies should be adopted later. The methodology itself is good but is simply inapplicable at this stage, Beleliev commented.

He sees no reason why households, which are the largest electricity customers in Bulgaria, remain on a regulated market, "which is very bad for the market and must be changed as soon as possible".

Specifying why the electricity system cannot be balanced, the expert listed the breakdown of the Chaira Pumped-Storage Hydroelectric Power Plant and the impossibility to repair it promptly, as well as the market distortion by regulated and subsidized household electricity, the enormous delay by the government of storage batteries programmes, the lack of control on the part of the Electricity System Operator over the construction of large solar power plants in areas without consumption, the up to BGN 1.5 billion annual subsidization of the Maritsa Basin, and the delay in the construction of new capacities in the Kozloduy Nuclear Power Plant.

"Things in the system are critical and measures must be taken," the interviewee insisted, noting that "Bulgaria is now an energy outsider in the Balkans while it was an energy hub of the region 30 years ago."

Asked why no bidders have come forward for the repair of Chaira's Unit 4, Beleliev singled out the low budget allocated for the project and, in depth, the inability of the National Electric Company (NEK) to manage effectively its projects in recent decades. He is not optimistic about the prospects of the pumped storage power plant resuming its full-capacity operation any time soon.