Some energy suppliers have artificially raised their prices in order to demand more money from the state budget through the mechanism of capping and clearing bills, according to a document of the National Energy Regulatory Authority (ANRE).
“During the verifications, energy suppliers were identified that used methods/ means of artificially increasing the weighted average purchase price by concluding at excessive prices intra-group procurement contracts, on centralized markets (products with short-term delivery – week/ month) and additional documents amending the contract price concluded after the publication in the Official Gazette of GEO 118/2021, in order to increase the amount settled from the state budget by increasing the difference between the weighted average purchase price and the maximum ceiling set by GEO 118/2021, a method by which the supplier can benefit from unjustifiably large sums from the state budget),” shows the document quoted by Agerpres.
These transactions concluded for the purpose of artificial price increase may be suspected, according to European regulations, of possible market manipulation, stressed the ANRE representatives, who started investigations in this respect.
Suppliers also used other ways to artificially increase the amount settled by “excluding from the data declared as procurement undergoing contracts between November 2021-January 2022 low-cost contracts, a method used by some suppliers to meet the eligibility criteria for exceeding the maximum ceiling of 525 lei/ MWh (electricity) or 250 lei/ MWh (in the case of natural gas).”
Starting with February 2022, the month in which compensation is granted on the cap scheme for all non-household customers, suppliers have been identified that have requested compensation for their own end customers, declaring as the only source of purchase quantities of electricity they received in as end customers of other suppliers, that in turn requested compensation for these quantities. In this way, compensation for the same amount of electricity was requested twice.
Until June 6, 2022, ANRE received 239 settlement requests from a number of 65 suppliers, resolved 62 requests and confirmed to the Ministry of Energy the payment of an amount of 34.8 million lei related to November, December and part of January 2022 invoices.
A number of 35 applications, worth 8 million lei, were rejected, as the energy purchase price was below the ceiling approved by law.