​Electricity suppliers will be required to have a web page through which they can provide customers with password-protected, free, real-time and secure access to the necessary information on billing data and location-related consumption history. self-consumption, as well as a guide with explanations on the content of the energy bill, NARE reported on Friday.

The National Energy Regulatory Authority announced on Friday that it has adopted significant changes to the Regulation on the supply of electricity to final consumers, which strengthen their rights in order to complete safeguards.

The new Regulation introduces a number of advantages, the most important of which are:

• the supplier is obliged to pay the customer’s debt in installmentsin case of late invoicing, during a period at least equal to the invoicing period
• vulnerable client has the right to installment payment of the current account, without penalties, at will, for a period of at least 3 months or as agreed by the parties
• the end consumer has the right be duly notified of any intention to change the contractual terms/clauses
• the final consumer has the right to receive information about the actual consumption of electricity and actual costsoften enough for them to be able to independently regulate their electricity consumption
• the end consumer has the right to conclude contracts for electricity at dynamic prices if he has an intelligent accounting system
• the supplier is obliged to keep webpage by which it makes available to the end user through password protected, free, secure real-time access important information regarding own data on the amount of invoices and consumption history related to the place of own consumption, transmission of self-reading index, transmission and management of requests/complaints, respectively manual with explanations on the elements in the content of the electricity bill model used in customer relations.

In approving the new Regulation, ANRE states that it also aims to simplify the content of the electricity invoice and the corresponding annex, thus fully transposing the provisions of Annex 1 – Minimum requirements for invoicing and invoicing information from Directive (EU) 944/2019 on common rules of the internal electricity market and amendments to Directive 2012/27/EU.

In this sense, according to the new Regulations, the most relevant items to be included in future invoices final consumers of electricity:

• identification and contact details of the supplier, including the customer support telephone line, email address and electronic online form for automatic registration of the request;
• information about the time interval during which the client can transfer the self-reading index, which cannot be less than 5 days;
• the telephone number provided by the distribution operator, to which the place of consumption is connected, by which the consumer can directly notify the distribution operator about interruptions in electricity supply, as well as about other problems in electricity supply;
• the date of termination of the contract, if the contract is concluded for a certain period;
• reading interval (in the case of internal customers, “maximum 3 months” will be indicated).

At the same time, to better understand the electricity bill, end customers will also receive an application, which will certainly contain a number of useful informationthe most relevant of which relate to:

• a comparison between the consumer’s current electricity consumption and the consumer’s consumption for the same period of the previous year, in graphic form, if the bills are based on actual consumption or remote reading by the distribution operator;
• comparison with the average energy consumer in the same consumption category, if bills are based on actual consumption or remote reading by the distribution operator;
• cumulative data for at least the last three years or for the period calculated from the beginning of the electricity supply contract, if the latter is shorter, if the end user has a meter that allows remote reading by the electricity distribution operator. The data must correspond to the intervals for which frequent payment information was issued;
• information about the client’s rights regarding alternative dispute resolution, including contact details of the responsible person.

The provisions of the new Regulation apply to both final consumers and suppliers of electricity, as well as operators of distribution and transmission systems and electricity systems.