Household consumers who have multiple places of consumption will no longer be required to submit declarations for the place of consumption where they benefit from a price cap, but the obligation to submit a declaration under their own responsibility will remain for three categories of final consumers, according to the draft emergency decree , which is being discussed by the Ministry of Energy.

Electricity consumptionPhoto: Dragonimages / Dreamstime.com
  • “This draft normative act proposes to cancel Art. 1 paragraph (10) of the Government Emergency Order No. 27/2022, approved with amendments and additions by Law No. 206/2022 with further amendments and additions, which cancel the obligation of household consumers who have places of consumption at home and at their place of residence, to submit declarations regarding the place of consumption where they use the limited price.
  • Thus, the obligation to submit declarations remains only for end consumers who belong to the categories specified in Art. 1, clause (1) letters a, ii), iii) and iv). this is shown in the GEO project rationale.

SEE DRAFT GEO AND KEYNOTE HERE

Which consumers will still be required to submit declarations

This means that in order to benefit from the final posted price, limited by electricity suppliers to a maximum of 0.68 lei/kWh, including VAT, the obligation to submit self-responsible declarations will fall on the following consumers:

  • (ii) home clients who use devices, apparatus or medical equipment necessary for treatment, upon request and self-declaration; the limited final invoice price is applied from the first day of the month following the month in which the specified documents were submitted;
  • (iii) household consumers who have at least 3 dependent children under the age of 18, respectively 26 years old, if they are studying according to the form of education, on the basis of a statement and a declaration of personal responsibility; the limited final invoice price is applied from the first day of the month following the month in which the specified documents were submitted;
  • (iv) household consumers, single-parent families who have at least one dependent child under the age of 18, respectively 26 years of age according to the form of education, on the basis of an application and a self-responsible declaration; the limited final invoice price is applied from the first day of the month following the one in which the specified documents were submitted.

According to the new decree on emergency situations, end consumers will benefit from the price cap only depending on inclusion in certain monthly levels of electricity consumption, as established by Art. 1 of the emergency government order no. 27/2022, approved with amendments and additions by Law No. 206/2022 with further amendments and additions.

It is also proposed to cancel the punishment for failure to comply with the provisions of Art. 1 paragraph (10), provided for in Art. 16 para. (3) of the same emergency order.

The Minister of Energy stated that all self-responsibility declarations will be removed

Earlier in the day, Energy Minister Virgil Popescu said self-responsibility declarations under the cap law would be scrapped, and capped tariffs would apply regardless of consumption locations.​​

  • “Even at the end of last week, Prime Minister Nicolae Chuke developed a task to develop a draft order to REMOVE these statements, so that all citizens can benefit from tariff restrictions, regardless of the number of places of consumption. The project will be finalized and presented to transparency decision-making tonight, to be approved next week, during the last cabinet meeting of the year. Virgil Popescu wrote about it on Facebook.

The National Energy Regulatory Authority (ANRE) clarified a week ago which categories of people must submit a self-responsibility declaration to the supplier in order to benefit from the electricity price cap, noting that in the case of domestic end-users with a single point of consumption, they automatically benefit from the capped price, in which they fell

  • Dumitru Kiselice: There will be checks on consumers, as the amount of compensation for 2022 exceeds the defense budget

The law establishing new energy price caps, which will apply from January 1, 2023 to March 31, 2025, was announced last week by President Klaus Iohannis and published in the Official Gazette.

ANRE later provided an explanation, clarifying that for approximately 5 million domestic consumers, the maximum final price charged is 0.68 lei/kWh, including VAT, and applies to the following categories of customers:

  • monthly consumption from 0 to 100 kWh inclusive;
  • who uses devices, equipment or medical equipment necessary for treatment, based on a request and a self-declaration; the limited final invoice price is applied from the first day of the month following the month in which the specified documents were submitted;
  • who have at least 3 dependent children under the age of 18, respectively 26 years old, if they are studying according to the form of education, on the basis of an application and declaration under their own responsibility; the limited final invoice price is applied from the first day of the month following the month in which the specified documents were submitted;
  • single-parent families who have at least one dependent child under the age of 18, respectively 26 years old according to the form of education by application and self-responsible declaration; the limited final invoice price is applied from the first day of the month following the month in which the specified documents were submitted;
  • during approx. 2.8 million household customers, the maximum final billed price is 0.80 lei/kWh, including VAT, for monthly consumption from 100.01 to 255 kWh; electricity consumption from 255 to 300 kWh/month is billed at a maximum price of 1.3 lei/kWh, including VAT;
  • if the consumption exceeds 300 kWh/month, the full consumption is billed at a maximum of 1.3 lei/kWh, including VAT, from this maximum benefit of approx. 0.8 million household consumers.
  • In the case of domestic final consumers, the capped final price applies only to places of consumption at home/residence, namely:
  • the final household consumer with one place of consumption automatically benefits from the limited price to which he falls according to his monthly consumption;
  • a residential final consumer who has both a residential address and a home address can benefit from a capped price that he falls under according to his monthly consumption, either at his home address or at his residential address, based on the declaration submitted to the electricity supplier, regarding the fact that it does not benefit from a price cap for another place of consumption.

ANRE also announced at the time that they will benefit from a maximum of 1 lei/kWh, including VAT, for 85% of monthly electricity consumption at the point of consumption, the difference in monthly electricity consumption will be billed at the maximum price. 1.3 lei kWh, including VAT, also on the basis of an affidavit legal representative of the following consumers:

  • small and medium-sized enterprises, as defined in Law No. 346/2004 on the stimulation of the creation and development of small and medium-sized enterprises, as amended and supplemented, hereinafter referred to as SMEs;
  • regional operators/operators that provide/provide public services, as well as the transport company of the Bucharest Metro “Metrorex” – SA;
  • economic entities in the field of food industry, identified by CAEN code 10, as well as in the field of agriculture and fishing, identified by CAEN codes 01 and 03;
  • local government bodies and institutions, decentralized public services of ministries and other central bodies, companies and commercial companies of district, municipal or local interest, autonomous governments and all public and private institutions providing public services, in accordance with the law, if they are established or organized at the level of communes, cities, municipalities, counties, Bucharest municipality;
  • public and private hospitals defined in accordance with Law no. 95/2006 on health care reform, reissued with further changes and additions;
  • public and private educational institutions, as well as kindergartens, public and private providers of social services provided in the Nomenclature of social services.

This limit also applies to situations where one of the aforementioned entities is the final beneficiary of the electricity consumption and/or to all buildings that have been constructed and permitted for hospital purposes.

Sample affidavit for limiting the price of electricity

Taking into account the introduced new categories of final consumers who can benefit from the price cap after submitting an application and declaration to the electricity supplier, NARE has developed an application model and a declaration model under its own responsibility.

Both applications and declarations of personal responsibility can be submitted to electricity suppliers in physical or electronic form. The models can be downloaded from the ANRE website www.anre.ro.

Photo: Dreamstime.com