site.btaParliamentary Committee Decides for Household Consumers to Stay on Regulated Electricity Market by End-2025

The parliamentary energy committee on Wednesday decided that household consumers will stay on the regulated market by December 31 2025

Sponsor Delyan Dobrev said that the National Recovery and Resilience Plan stipulates that household consumers have to switch to the unregulated market by December 31 2025, which is the same deadline. The idea to adopt such a decision is that without a legislature some partial liberalization may be effected without legal changes. "This is done to calm down the public,” said Dobrev. 

Energy and Water Regulatory Commission Chair Ivan Ivanov said that the regulator supports leaving household consumers on the regulated market firstly because of the high prices of electricity. Secondly, many consumers are energy poor. And thirdly, there are no definitions and criteria for energy vulnerable consumers.

“There are no restrictions for household consumers to switch to the unregulated market,” said Ivanov. In addition, the regulator has provided for them to switch back to the regulated market.

Caretaker Energy Minister Rosen Hristov said that the Energy Ministry supports the proposal for household consumers to stay on the regulated market for as long as possible.

Also, the committee decided that energy compensations for the businesses will cover the difference between the average monthly price on the day ahead market for the respective month and a baseline price of BGN 200/MWh by the end of 2023. The proposal was made by Dragomir Stoynev of BSP for Bulgaria.