The subsidies the Romanian Government pledged to pay energy suppliers to cover the difference between the capped electricity and natural gas prices, and the actual market prices would reach RON 40 bln (EUR 8 bln) this year alone, according to estimates carried out by the energy market regulator ANRE at the request of e Ministry of Energy, Economica.net reported.

The magnitude of the subsidies raised concerns among the energy suppliers, who claim that they are anyway disbursed with long delays the subsidies pledged under the former scheme carried out over the past winter season.

In principle, the subsidies should be financed from the supplementary tax on the windfall profits derived by the energy (natural gas and electricity) producers over the same period under a mechanism that includes automatic balancing: the higher the wholesale energy prices are, the higher the subsidies and the tax levied.

The new scheme was enforced in April and expires at the end of March 2023, when the subsidies will be phased out most likely gradually.

Under the Government emergency ordinance (OUG) 27/2022, drafted and published without any assessment of the impact on the budget, the residential electricity customers pay, between April 1, 2022, and March 31, 2023, an end-user capped price of RON 0.68 per kWh (those with an average monthly consumption of maximum 100 kWh in 2022) and RON 0.80 per kWh (for average consumption between 100 and 300 kWh).

Non-residential customers, except for very large ones, who have other support schemes, pay RON 1 per kWh.

For gas, all domestic customers have a final price guaranteed of RON 0.31 per kWh, while the industrial ones pay RON 0.38 per kWh of gas. 

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iulian@romania-insider.com