Many people ask: why should we save on energy if we produce? Firstly, because our market is interconnected with the European market, and secondly, Romania has been a net importer of electricity for several years.

Last year, production amounted to 54 TWh, consumption – 56.2 TWh, the difference was compensated by imports.

In this context, in the short term, the optimal solution for reducing bills is to save on electricity consumption and purchase energy directly from producers, eliminating intermediaries from the supply chain. In the long term, we need more production capacity.

The energy market is atypical because electricity is not stored and must be consumed as it is produced or very soon. Also, it is considered a necessity of life in the civilized world, so a special market structure was needed to ensure uninterrupted supply.

The idea from which the construction of the energy market began was to have companies that would deal with each link in the chain between production and consumption: producers, intermediaries and suppliers.

The first in this chain are producers, companies that produce electricity at power plants from sources such as hydropower, gas, coal, nuclear power and other renewable sources: wind, sun, biomass. Suppliers are those who take energy from producers and deliver it to consumers.

The manufacturer Hidroelectrica has the best price on the market

However, with the liberalization of the market, consumers can buy energy from any company that has a license in this market, that is, including producers. During this period, we have an example of consumer migration to Hidroelectrica, which offers its customers a much lower price than other suppliers on the market.

If we look at the price comparison on the ANRE website, Hidroelectrica has a price of 0.67 lei per kWh, while the next company has a price of 2.76 lei per kWh, which is four times more.

We have an example that the price can be lower if you take energy directly from the producers.

The disadvantage is that Hidroelectrica does not specialize in the supply of energy to the final domestic consumer, and this creates problems for consumers, such as long delays in billing.

How much experience matters in dealing with domestic clients

In a Facebook group, Hidroelectrica customers complain that they have not received bills for months, that they have filled out an online form to switch to this company and have not received any response or that they cannot contact the company’s representatives. There are even jokes about this topic: “People generally complain when the bills come. Hidroelectrica customers complain they don’t get bills” and a meme asking Elon Musk on Twitter: “Has anyone received a Hidro bill for July?”.

Either jokingly or more seriously, Hidroelectrica customers advise each other to save money each month for energy consumption so that it will be easier for them to pay when the bill comes every few months.

The case of Hidroelectrica best shows us that it is important for our energy supplier to have experience in billing and dealing with residential customers.

In addition, there is a question about another technical feature of the energy market: producers produce energy in a range (continuously, with the same power), and the consumption of household consumers fluctuates a lot, more during the day, less at night, with peak consumption in the evening. A supplier who knows this activity very well can supply energy based on how people consume (this is called consumer profiling activity).

Traders transfer energy from one side to another

However, questions arise when we talk about energy traders, that is, companies with one or two employees who make very large profits by moving energy from one side to another. On the energy exchange, for example, the volume of electricity trading exceeds consumption by more than 50%. Unfortunately, these transactions greatly affect the final price paid by consumers.

In the whole current energy crisis, the Government has taken it quite hard and decided to increase taxes on traders’ profits, but only from September 2022.

“We tax everyone when the profits are very large. And the electricity market brings huge profits. And double is a very big profit. In my opinion, an electricity and natural gas broker should not earn more than a few percent, because he only buys and sells,” Energy Minister Virgil Popescu said in August.

Romania consumes more energy than it produces

Our country has been a net importer of energy resources for many years. There are also days when production exceeds consumption, but overall we consume more than we produce.

According to reports by the Energy Regulatory Authority, last year producers supplied 54 TWh of electricity, consumed 56.2 TWh, imported 7.6 TWh, and exported 5.4 TWh.

A year earlier, in 2020, 50.7 TWh of energy was supplied to the market, 53.5 TWh was consumed, 7.3 TWh was imported and 4.5 TWh was exported.

Therefore, in the long term, plans for price stability and security of supply should provide for the creation of new production capacities.

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