President Klaus Iohannis has resubmitted to parliament a law that changes consumer rights, as some of the provisions would cause additional costs for all end consumers in Romania. In addition, the normative act voted in the parliament violates European legislation and the principle of bicameralism.

The law submitted for promulgation makes a number of changes to the legal regime applicable to prosumers by distinguishing between a legal person prosumer and a natural person prosumer.

The changes also concern a number of rules that regulate their activities, such as increasing the limit of installed capacity for which quantitative compensation can be claimed from 200 kW to 400 kW, introducing, as determined by the consumer, the possibility of storing energy, selling directly the energy of another consumer, directly associated with the production facility, and compensate the energy produced in excess with the energy consumed at another point of consumption, if this happens with the same supplier and the same distribution operator.

At the same time, the regulatory act provides for an increase from 400 kW to 900 kW of power, up to which the consumer does not pay for the imbalances caused in the network.

However, according to the European Regulation 943/2019 on the internal energy market, only capacities up to 400 kW are exempted from the imbalance payment.

The costs of the imbalances would be borne by the suppliers, who would pass them on to the final consumers’ invoices.

“The new regulated limit is more than twice the limit allowed by the European regulation, and with reference to the provisions of Art. 5 para. (4) of the Regulation, starting from January 1, 2026, the limit, which provided for the possibility of states to introduce such an exception, is even lower – up to 200 kW.

The consequences of this exemption from responsibility for the imbalances caused in the system and the transfer of responsibility strictly to the supplier, according to the conditions regulated by ANRE, involve additional costs borne by the final consumer,” the request for re-examination of the law states.

The principle of bicameralism was violated

Furthermore, this provision was amended by the Chamber of Deputies, the Decision-Making Chamber, following a joint report by the Committee on Economic Policy, Reform and Privatization and the Committee on Industry and Services.

In order to fulfill the requirement that the law be a joint work of the two houses of parliament, it is necessary that the Senate, as the first competent chamber, evaluates the appropriateness of the newly introduced changes.

In addition, the articles of this law were not harmonized with the previous legislation, so the implementation of this law would mean contradictory norms.

At the same time, the quantitative compensation increases from 200 kW to 400 kW including for existing contracts, according to the law voted in the parliament, which will determine, again, the consequences for the final prices.

“Due to this transitional rule, the new applicable quantitative compensation conditions will also apply to renewable electricity sales contracts already concluded between suppliers and consumers, with consequences for the security of legal relationships.

Given that the parties have assumed a number of rights and obligations in a given context and given the effective ability to apply this mechanism, the new rules on quantitative compensation applicable to current contracts may create additional pressure on one of the contracting parties with consequences also on final prices,” the Presidential Administration notes.

There are also problems with invoicing

The law also states that a supplier is one who issues bills in the name and at the expense of consumers.

“We believe that the establishment of this obligation for electricity suppliers requires clarification regarding the consequences from the point of view of commercial rights and obligations, including fiscal obligations, since the legislative decision essentially boils down to the transfer of administrative costs from the consumer to supplier under the conditions that each of them is an active participant in the electricity market, presumably equal in rights and obligations.

In addition, the statement of reasons does not justify a legislative decision, which will result in the complete transfer of part of the costs caused by administrative operations related to economic activity from the participant of the electricity market – the consumer – to another participant – the supplier. . The reasons why the prosumer cannot bear direct responsibility for the fulfillment of his administrative and fiscal obligations directly related to his own profitable activity, the beginning and development of which he chose freely and without restrictions, are also not detailed,” the message reads. also stated in the review petition.

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