Romania’s electricity market is now fully liberalized

Since the beginning of this year, the electricity market in Romania is fully liberalized – there will be no longer regulated tariffs that household consumers paid until December 31, 2017.

Consumers of electricity in Romania now can choose between competitive regime and universal service market, with the option to return to the universal service market at anytime.

Since the market is now going to be competitive and non-discriminatory mechanism for the sale of electricity in Romania, the price of electricity is expected to be more favorable since the universal service market is a safety market.

The Romanian Regulatory Authority for Energy (ANRE), according to Romanian media, will only endorse the final tariffs for consumers who do not change the supplier.  For the first six months this year, ANRE approved tariffs that are 0.34% lower than those in the previous semester.

The whole process of price deregulation started in 2007, with the implementation of the World Bank’s recommendations. Still, the price deregulation for all but household consumers was completed four years ago, on January 1, 2014. For the household consumers, the process went in stages and finally ended with the last day of 2017.

Full liberalization of electricity market, as a top priority in the government program, was announced in May last year, at the International conference Electricity Market Liberalisation – Bulgaria in a Regional and European Context, held in Sofia. The Ministry of Energy said back then that the process of liberalization would place energy under entirely market conditions and at the same time would ensure security for investors.

In April last year, Romania liberalized domestic gas market.