In the context of the liberalization of electricity prices for household customers, the Energy Regulatory Authority (ANRE) has developed a new regulation for the supply of electricity of last resort.

ANRE decided that, from January 1, 2020, there will be at least five suppliers of last resort (FUI), which will be designated at national level, and not on network areas, as provided in the current regulation, and the notions of mandatory and optional FUI will be eliminated, according to e-nergia.ro.

FUIs will be designated for an indefinite period, and the eligibility criterion based on serving at least 2,000 national consumption places in a given period will no longer apply to their designation. FUIs will be designated either at the request of suppliers who want to have this quality, or by organizing a selection process, if there are less than five suppliers who usually become FUIs. In the latter case, the selection is made by ANRE, taking into account the descending order of the maximum total market share of the electricity suppliers, in terms of the number of customers and the sales volume.

The suppliers designated by ANRE following the organization of the selection process based on the maximum total market share cannot request the voluntary withdrawal of this quality, only the suppliers who have become FUI at their request can do so.