Bogdan Tudorache

The Intelligent Energy Association (AEI) has submitted a petition to the People’s Advocate, the Government and the Presidency requesting the formation of a weighted average gas price for household consumers who have not signed the contract with another supplier.

“As a result of the alarming data resulting from the sociological research conducted at national level by INSCOP Research within the project of the Romanian Academy’s ‘Energy Security Barometer’ in Romania, we find that over 3 million Romanians risk having large gas bills from July 1, 2020 due to suppliers which do not want to offer Romanians a fair price,” the association claims.

”The lack of dialogue between most suppliers and their household customers is based on legislation made by ANRE, which favors suppliers, allowing them to impose an incorrect price on gas, against the will of the household consumer. By this Petition, we request the People’s Advocate to intervene with ANRE for the observance of the legislation in force by repealing art. 4 of Order 27/2020, the one that gives the possibility to the suppliers to impose their price unilaterally.”

AEI proposes amending the Law 123/2012 by Emergency Ordinance, through a new project that would establish, for the transition period until July 1, 2021, a price set as a weighted average for the Day Ahead market for products on the Romanian gas exchanges for household consumers who have not signed the contract with another gas supplier.

“Such an approach would eliminate the violation of existing legislation, eliminate the unilateral setting of the price of natural gas by suppliers, would allow those who have not negotiated or failed to negotiate a gas price to benefit from a fair price in relation to the evolution gas market and would lead to a change in the behavior of gas suppliers in the sense of obliging them to identify channels of communication and negotiation with household consumers’.”