Bulgarian Energy Watchdog Opens Free Market to Small Business

The Chair of the State Commission for Energy and Water Regulation, DKEVR, Angel Semerdzhiev. Photo by BGNES

Amendments are pending in the Bulgarian Electric Power Act to allow the small and medium business to enter the free electricity market.

The statement was made for the media Tuesday by the Chair of the State Commission for Energy and Water Regulation, DKEVR, Angel Semerdzhiev.

Semerdzhiev says that currently protected consumers include households, State administration, and enterprises with staff up to 50 people, but there is a need to liberalize the market thus all businesses must enter it.

The DKEVR Head, however, pointed out that initially the National Electric Company, NEK, will assume functions of end supplier over concerns that small and medium companies are not yet prepared to look for suppliers of electric power on their own.

He further informed that unconfirmed data reveals that currently the price of electric power on the free market is similar to the regulated one, adding more precise numbers will become available by the end of the year.

All consumers on the regulated market know the price for the entire upcoming year while on the free market, the price fluctuates depending on supply and demand, which means that changes would be more frequent, but at the end the business would not endure losses.

Semerdzhiev noted that businesses such as small stores and coffee shops will remain on the list of protected consumers while criteria would most likely include consumption of electricity and the type of used network.

He pointed out that probes of the German-owned E.ON and the Austrian EVN Electric Power Utilities, EPP, over numerous reports of delayed reinstatement of the supply of electric power in eastern Bulgaria, which was hit by an early winter storm, have not yet concluded, but preliminary results show the problems stemmed mostly from difficult access to facilities and not the number of dispatched emergency teams.

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