Many energy suppliers have appealed against the ANRE order that forces them to trade electricity at fixed prices and quantities from 1 January, said market sources quoted by Bursa daily. “These actions do not stop the implementation of the order, but providers are looking for legal ways to achieve this soon”, said the sources.
ANRE believes that the electricity market has been manipulated in the past year, through closed transactions on OPCOM with variable price and quantities, according to a document acquired by the newspaper in September.
The document presents the justification note of the new trading rules adopted by ANRE, which comes into force on 1 January 2015, rules that do not allow energy trading contracts at varying prices and amounts.
According to the document at hand, ANRE experts believe: “Operators say they should be allowed to make contracts with flexible prices (pricing formulas) and uncertain quantities, as it would encourage long-term contracts and contracting of energy products with high variability of production capacities, namely those based on renewable energy sources.
Bidding on a price that matters, in most cases, only a 1% share of the contract price, represents an electricity market manipulation (no matter how large or small the auction price is, because it is not important for the parties that will engage in the contract, but it will give a false indication to other stakeholders and reduces the transparency of the tender in question).”
Operators argue that ANRE prevents market development by establishing mandatory trading of electricity with fixed prices and quantities, which will make impossible to conclude long-term contracts. However, ANRE experts say that the purpose of having medium and long-term contracts is mainly to provide parties with a fixed price and quantity, well-defined, allowing budgeting expenses / revenues (tools for insurance against the risk of volatility).
“Any other type of contracts transfer risk from one party to another, but in a non-transparent way, that distort market outcomes, with extremely dangerous effects on other participants”, the document states.