For many home consumers, capping has no effect at the moment – according to a study by the Intelligent Energy Association (AEI), and 80% of household gas consumers will not benefit from the price cap, which will lead to a price increase for gas.
“In the coming months, almost all household consumers will have their gas contracts expired, and the new contracts will end at prices above the current gas price. Thus, in April 2022 not only will we not have lower gas prices than the similar period of 2021, but we will even have significant price increases that we estimate on average to be about 120% compared to the average price of the year past,” say the AEI experts.
We must keep in mind that from April 1, 2022, there will be increases in transmission and distribution tariffs, the year 2022 being the year in which a new regulatory period ends and which will bring significant tariff increases due to the free connection to the grid imposed by authorities (the promised gratuity is made via increasing the tariffs paid by other consumers), increasing the cost of gas losses and technological consumption, unnecessary or inefficient investments in the sector, etc.
In 2020, the authorities legislated the Gas Release Program, which had the stated purpose of lowering the price of gas, but the real result was the beginning of the increase in the price of gas in Romania. In 2021, the authorities legislated the Gas Price Cap, which had the stated purpose of lowering the price of gas, but the real result was an increase in the prices of all offers.
“The average price of natural gas to the final consumer in November 2021, according to INS data, was of about 220 lei/MWh. Thus, apparently, the capping of the final price of natural gas at a value of 370 lei/ MWh and 310 lei/MWh from February 1 is useless during this period,” said the AEI experts.
In fact, the capping had a very important effect, determined, according to the ANRE website, the increase of the price of gas offered on the market from a level of minimum 220 lei/MWh to a level of minimum 420 lei/MWh in November 2021 and of 640 lei/MWh in January 2022. Thus, all contracts that expire in this period or in the next period, will be concluded at prices higher than 600 lei/MWh, says AEI.
