A free energy market, within a healthy framework, brings benefits to consumers, and after April 1, 2025, the first objective – protecting vulnerable consumers – will involve a scenario that is being outlined and will be debated. The idea is that no household should fall below the poverty line after paying its energy bills, says Energy Minister Sebastian Burduja.
He emphasised that while he cannot predict the prices on consumers’ bills next spring, as the market looks now, all consumers in Romania will pay electricity prices lower than the current maximum cap of 1.3 lei/kWh.
„It is certain that the prices paid by Romanian households now are among the lowest in Europe. The Eurostat report for the second quarter of this year has just been published. We continue to pay the fourth-lowest price for natural gas and the fifth-lowest for electricity in Europe. (…) We started discussions with the involved parties as early as June of this year, analysed multiple scenarios, and conducted a series of simulations. We set up an interministerial working committee with two main objectives: short-term – protecting vulnerable consumers, and medium- and long-term – combating energy poverty. For the first objective, which is to protect vulnerable consumers after April 1, one scenario that is taking shape and will be debated in the committee’s first session is that no household should fall below the poverty line after paying its energy bills. So, no Romanian who cannot afford to pay their bills will be left behind but will be protected by the Romanian state through targeted subsidies, as it happens throughout the European Union,” the minister wrote on his Facebook page on Wednesday evening.
He reiterated that the price cap of 0.68 lei/kWh is unsustainable, far below the market level, and is paid by all households in Romania that consume less than 100 kWh per month, regardless of the size or value of their home, the area they live in, or the income of the household members.
Burduja said that the principle of a free market is „a healthy one” because it fosters competition between suppliers, leading to better prices and services for consumers.
„Even now, there are suppliers offering prices far below the cap for annual consumption, both for electricity and natural gas. There are offers on the ANRE website at 0.90 lei/kWh, which means a substantial reduction for Romanians consuming more than 300 kWh/month. Even Hidroelectrica had offers for 12 months, until October 1, at 0.80 lei/kWh. The free market should not scare us. In a healthy framework, it brings benefits to consumers, along with greater responsibility on our part as clients, to be more demanding with our supplier, to look for the correct prices and services that suit each of us. By April 1, we aim to adopt the support mechanism we have started working on and, most importantly, to speed up investments in energy. Only through investments will we stop worrying about energy bills. We have already attracted over 13 billion euros in the first 15 months of our mandate, we are seeing new photovoltaic and wind parks that have been commissioned on non-reimbursable funds from the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (PNRR), in the next 45 days we will finalise the first auction for the Contracts for Difference (investing 3 billion euros in total), and soon reactors 3 and 4 at Cernavoda will become a certainty and will be on a one-way track,” the minister pointed out.
AGERPRES
