Energy and gas distribution companies will bear the costs of connecting new customers to the network, and these costs will later be found in the consumers’ bill, but will not exceed 1% of the distribution tariff, said on Tuesday Niculae Havrileţ, secretary of state in the Ministry of Economy, Energy and Business Environment.

“It is about all domestic and some non-household consumers. The connection costs will be borne by the distribution operator, which, however, has the possibility to include them in the annual investment plans, which will eventually be transferred to the distribution tariffs. The value is very small, a calculation has been made, an estimate, and the distribution tariff is increasing almost insignificantly, it is below 1%, it is a good measure for all consumers, including those in the vulnerable category, to be able to be connected and benefit from this service,” the government official claimed, at Digi 24, according to Agerpres.

He stressed that this measure will be taken both in terms of connection to the gas system and in terms of new electricity customers.

“We want the distribution operators to finance the connections and some future developments of the localities. Therefore, it is specified that, if a territorial-administrative unit plans to expand it, the distribution operator must include in the next year’s investment plan the expansion of the network also for the new area,” Havrileţ added.