Competition Council will complete at the end of this year or at the beginning of 2021 the investigation started against Hidroelectrica, and this will make the Day Ahead Market work better, said the president of the institution, Bogdan Chiriţoiu.
“The news I can give you tonight: we believe that at the end of this year, or the beginning of next year, we will end our investigation against Hidroelectrica. We believe that this investigation will make the Day Ahead Market work better. We want to see a lower use of the Balancing Market and higher quantities available on the Day Ahead Market,” said Chiriţoiu, at Energynomics Awards 2020.
At the same time, he added that he is analyzing the opportunity for the competition authority to investigate next year the situation of the cogeneration bonus in the electricity industry.
“Both for the ministry (of Energy) and also for us it is important what happens to energy users. We receive notifications, signals and I am convinced, like the Government, that the price of energy, especially electricity, is higher for industrial consumers in Romania than in other countries with which we compete in attracting investment and exports, and efforts have been made here. A few years ago, the contribution for green certificates was reduced, recently the contribution for emission certificates has decreased … Maybe we should also look at the cogeneration bonus, especially since now it has increased quite a lot, lately, according to the new ANRE calculations. So, this is a potential area that we should look at next year,” mentioned Bogdan Chiriţoiu, according to Agerpres.
In September 2018, the Competition Council launched an investigation into a possible abuse of Hidroelectrica’s dominant position on the Romanian electricity production and trading market, according to a statement issued at the time by the competition authority.