Bad news for household consumers: gas bill to increase from January 1, 2025

The Association of Electricity and Gas Suppliers in Romania (AFEER) draws attention to a 10% increase in natural gas bills for household consumers, starting January 1, 2025, if Parliament does not quickly adopt a legislative amendment. The gas price increase will impact 4.5 million households in our country, right in the middle of winter.

The President of AFEER, Laurenţiu Urluescu, stated yesterday, during an informal meeting with the media, that the current regulated natural gas purchase mechanism, which imposes a price of 120 lei/MWh, expires on December 31, 2024, and in the absence of an extension of this mechanism, suppliers will have to purchase gas from the market at much higher prices, currently estimated at 230-240 lei/MWh. Although the cap on final prices for consumers remains in effect until March 31, 2025, higher purchase costs will lead to a maximum threshold of 0.31 lei/kWh, compared to the current level of 0.27-0.28 lei/kWh. "There will be an increase of about 10%, which means that, for an average bill of 1,200-1,250 lei, household customers will pay 150 lei more, and for a 2-room apartment the bill will increase by 50 lei," Laurenţiu Urluescu said.

He pointed out that the major problem is that the current regulated purchase mechanism has not yet been extended by Parliament. Although a law that would extend this mechanism until March 31, 2025 was voted in the summer (this is Plx 255), it has been sent for re-examination by the President of Romania. Currently, the project is still in the legislative circuit, and if it is not adopted by the end of this year, suppliers will have to buy gas at high prices from the market, selling it to households at a capped price. The difference would be covered by the state budget.

With 4.5 million household customers affected, this situation risks creating significant financial difficulties for many households. In the middle of winter, the increase in bills will be felt hard, especially given that Romania is going through a difficult economic period. Therefore, suppliers are calling on Parliament to take swift measures to prevent these increases.

Laurenţiu Urluescu said: "It is quite unpleasant for consumers. I have repeatedly drawn attention to this aspect, but the decision now depends on legislative factors," Urluescu said.

In the absence of an immediate legislative solution, consumers must be prepared for higher costs at the beginning of next year. Good management of natural gas consumption and energy efficiency measures can help reduce the financial impact.

• Suppliers accuse a negative impact of the implementation of e-Invoice in the B2C relationship

Also from January 1, 2025, energy suppliers will have to apply the provisions of the emergency ordinance introducing the RO e-Invoice system in the B2C (business to consumer) relationship, an introduction that means that electricity and natural gas invoices to household customers must be issued only through this system. Energy suppliers draw attention to the fact that the digital reform has not yet been completed and that most household consumers in rural areas, but also a significant part of those in urban areas, are not yet registered in the Virtual Private Space (SPV) and do not have an ANAF identification code in this regard for energy companies to issue invoices in the RO e-Invoice system.

Laurenţiu Urluescu, president of AFEER, said: "We would like to continue sending these invoices in the classic style, but the legislation in force does not allow us. Since October, we have been making requests to the Ministry of Finance and ANAF to receive clarifications regarding e-Invoice in B2C relations in the energy sector, but we have not received any response so far. It is true that the law states that, in case of non-implementation of e-Invoice, sanctions will only be applied from July 1, 2025. But the law obliges us, from January 1, 2025, to issue invoices in RO e-Invoice for household consumers, that is, for 10 million consumers, and most of them are not registered on ANAF's SPV platform. We are curious how this system will be applied in rural areas, where the digital reform is far from the proposed targets."

Suppliers are concerned that issuing energy invoices to household customers only in the RO e-Invoice system will lead to a drastic reduction of almost 50% in payments made, because not all household consumers will check in the system whether they have received the energy e-Invoice or not. This decrease in receipts will cause a reduction in the cash flow and liquidity of energy companies, which have already been facing this problem for almost two years. Especially since the Ministry of Energy did not transfer any amount in 2024 for settlement in the capping-compensation scheme, the last invoices verified by ANRE being from December 2023.

• 15 billion lei - state debt to energy companies

According to AFEER, the state's payment arrears to energy companies on the capping-compensation scheme amount to 6 billion lei.

Laurenţiu Urluescu points out: "The capping-compensation scheme was supported in 2024 only by energy companies, because we were not paid any amount by the state. Our concern is that, if problems arise with a supplier, all its consumers will go to the FUI (ed. - suppliers of last resort), and if there are more such situations, these suppliers of last resort will be blocked."

To the above-mentioned state payment arrears to energy suppliers, we should also add the approximately 9 billion lei that should be returned from the public budget to some energy companies, after the Constitutional Court found the regulatory act by which the respective companies were overtaxed by the state illegal. As can be seen, in the energy sector, companies have to recover approximately 15 billion lei from the state budget.

AFEER also accuses the fact that in 2024 the prices on the balancing market were very high, with unusual variations, their volatility being a characteristic for the entire current year.

Laurenţiu Urluescu stated: "What kills us is the unpredictability of these balancing prices, especially on the supply side. There are very large price differences between two consecutive 15-minute intervals, which is aberrant. We believe that the main problem in the balancing market is limited transparency."

We remind you that during the summer season on the balancing market a Megawatt hour cost between 13,000 and 15,000 lei.