The new emergency ordinance that aims to cap the prices of electricity and natural gas for a period of 12 months is on the table of the Senate Energy Commission, and will enter into force on April 1, Istvan-Lorant Antal, chairman of the committee, announced on Tuesday.
“We are going to report on this draft approval of the emergency ordinance. This emergency ordinance takes into account all the experiences and statistics, the doubts, the things that have not worked well in the last months, going through the other two emergency ordinances 118 and the ordinance of urgency 3. I strongly believe that this new ordinance has improved and is helping the industry,” said Istvan-Lorant Antal, according to Agerpres.
He said there were still “small ambiguities where interventions are needed”, but the home consumer, SMEs and industry will be helped and supported in this energy crisis over the next 12 months.
For his part, George Niculescu, Secretary of State in the Ministry of Energy, said that diversifying the supply of both natural gas and electricity can help ensure the security of the national energy system.
“I am referring to natural gas, to the steps that Minister Virgil Popescu has taken recently, in such a way as to try to reduce the dependence on Russian gas to the greatest extent possible,” George Niculescu said.
He also referred to the Modernization Fund “where the amounts are quite generous”. “I believe that Romania can no longer afford to miss this chance. The Modernization Fund will allow us massive investments in this sector,” the secretary of state added.
The government recently approved a new emergency ordinance to cap tariffs for final consumers. The normative act imposes new price caps for consumers, respectively 0.68 lei/kWh for an average monthly consumption less than or equal to 100 kWh (registered in 2021) and 0.8 lei/kWh for an average monthly consumption between 100 and 300 kWh for electricity. For gas, the maximum price is of 0.31 lei/kWk, regardless of the quantity consumed. The ceilings include VAT and apply to distributors who supply end consumers.