About 98% of the complaints about high electricity bills received by the Energy and Water Regulatory Commission were filed by customers who use electricity for heating, mainly through air conditioners. This was stated by the chairman of the energy regulator Plamen Mladenovski during a hearing in parliament, requested by the parliamentary group of “Vazrazhdane“.
According to him, the number of signals filed is extremely large and significantly exceeds the usual annual volume of complaints to the commission. “We receive about 200 complaints every day“, Mladenovski indicated. Currently, KEWR is working on over 4,600 signals, and 2,548 of them have been analyzed so far. Inspections are ongoing, as processing all cases takes time.
The energy regulator is conducting inspections in five main areas. The first is whether electricity prices have been applied correctly. Mladenovski reminded that the tariffs have not been changed since July 1, 2025, and no violations have been identified so far.
The second area is related to the duration of the reporting period, which must be up to 31 days. No deviations were found in this indicator either. An inspection was also carried out regarding the currency conversion of bills, and no problems were found there either.
The regulator has also analyzed the quantities of electricity purchased from suppliers on the Bulgarian Independent Energy Exchange. The data show that due to temperature fluctuations in the winter, suppliers purchased nearly 40% more electricity on a monthly basis at the end of the year. Mladenovski explained that November 2024 was warmer, while December was significantly colder, which led to higher consumption.
A similar opinion was expressed by Deputy Minister of Energy Krasimir Nenov. He indicated that the main reason for the higher bills during this heating season was the higher individual consumption caused by the lower temperatures in January compared to the same period last year.
Nenov also drew attention to the state of the building stock, emphasizing that the energy efficiency of housing also affects electricity consumption.
The Ministry of Energy has carried out extraordinary inspections of about 1,000 electricity meters, selected at random. In some cases, technical problems related to the safety of the measuring devices were identified, but they are not the reason for the reported high bills. Where technical issues have been identified, they have already been fixed and affected customers' accounts will be adjusted.