The energy supply agreements should contain clearer and tougher sanctions for the unilateral termination, said the President of the National Regulatory Authority for Energy (ANRE), Niculae Havrileţ.

“We believe that those conditions from the supply agreements should be tighten. These agreements are an act between two parties. ANRE cannot interfere in those agreements, that are concluded on the free market and established between the two parties, but we can advise the consumers. There should have been a more clearly sanctioning for the unilateral termination”, said the ANRE president, quoted by Agerpres.

This, given that the energy prices on the stock exchange continued to rise after January 20th, although the period of frost had passed, after a trader has announced that it unilateral terminates several of its agreements, according to economica.net.

Havrileţ added that in the past he warned the consumers that they may find themselves in a situation in which they remain without power.

“We started an investigation, with the suspicion that the unilateral termination was performed without reason”, said the ANRE official.

Asked if a change of the current regulations is required, Havrileţ replied that this will be determined by an exhaustive analysis that ANRE jointly performs with OPCOM and the Competition Council.

“We believe that, in general, the regulatory framework has not been breached, but there can be other elements that will indicate if it is appropriate to change the regulatory framework”, said the ANRE President.

Also, when asked how it was possible that prices will continue to grow so much due to the behavior of a single company, Havrileţ explained that it was a cascade of events, that has attracted many market players.

“It is not necessarily a single company. It had a consumer of industrial type, which, after the agreement was terminated, had to be picked up by a supplier of last resort. The consumer, in turn, went on the market to buy energy that he needed in addition, thus a chain of events of this kind was generated. Even if the energy has been fully ensured, on the market an even greater shortage was created, other providers were included in the game and we have witnessed a chain of disruptions”, said Havrileţ.

He also said that in January, the prices were also very high in the countries with which we are connected, namely Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia, but after the price decreased on these markets in Romania it remained at high levels for an additional 4-5 days, out of inertia.

“We are analyzing this aspect, in order to see if the adjustment of the regulatory framework is required, although normally this is the way the stock exchange operates, because it is a spot market, where prices are volatile. There are several categories of behaviors that we are analyzing. We are performing simple investigations, but some extensive ones also, where we need the Competition Council. More specifically, it is about behaviours which require the analysis of the Competition Council as part of its responsabilties, as well as the market manipulation and prior collusions between players”, added the official regulator.

Asked if capping the energy prices is required, as the energy market regulator from Great Britain ruled on Tuesday, Havrileţ replied: “For the moment we do not need to cap the prices. In the case of household consumers, we adjust the prices every six months and therefore there is no danger of an uncontrolled increase in energy prices.”

The energy market regulator from Great Britain has announced on Tuesday that it introduced a temporary maximum price of energy, which will allow a total of about four million households that use prepay type meters, to save 80 pounds per year to pay the gas and electricity bills, informs BBC.

This comes after the energy prices escalated greatly in the recent years in the Kingdom. The cap will be reviewed every six months and could be implemented by 2020, when the completion of the installation process of smart meters to all consumers is estimated to occur.

The British regulator’s decision to intervene in the market is all the more surprising since the energy market in Great Britain is one of the most advanced in Europe in terms of liberalization.

In Romania, this is the last year with regulated prices, following that, from January 1st, 2018, the market will be liberalized completely.