The caretaker government has approved changes to the program to compensate businesses for high-cost electricity. This was announced by the Minister of Energy Vladimir Malinov after today's regular meeting of the Council of Ministers.
The program was approved by the government at the end of July after a decision by the parliament.
MPs ordered the cabinet to compensate businesses, with more than 633,000 non-domestic consumers expected to be helped.
Compensations are expected to be paid at average monthly electricity prices above BGN 180 per megawatt hour. It doesn't matter if the company is making a profit or a loss.
All non-domestic consumers without exception will also have the right to benefit, explained the energy minister.
An addition was adopted to the program for compensating non-domestic customers, consumers of electric energy, and with today's decision, operators of transmission networks, power distribution networks and the power transmission network were also included in the program, the minister informed. According to him, with this decision of the cabinet, the circle of potential beneficiaries under the program is expanded. Minister Malinov announced that this mechanism envisages compensating 100% of the costs at a price above BGN 180 up to the actual costs that all companies, businesses and operators of electricity transmission and distribution networks will have for the period from July 1 to the end of 2024.< /p>
The other good news is that, in compliance with a decision of the Council of Ministers, we have completed the notification procedure with the European Commission (EC) regarding the eligibility of state aid, as this program constitutes state aid, Minister Malinov announced at the briefing. He said that there is an opinion from the EC that the implemented measure is analogous to previous such measures implemented in 2021 and in other years. The measure is needed for the market at the moment, which means that from tomorrow the actual implementation of the program will begin, explained the minister and announced that the "Electricity System Security" Fund the payment of compensations to businesses will begin in order to protect the competitiveness of the Bulgarian industry and economy,
Regarding high electricity prices, Vladimir Malinov said that the problem is regional and affects not only Bulgaria. In the last few months, extremely high electricity prices have been noticed in markets neighboring Bulgaria – Greece, Romania, even Hungary, the minister said, broadcast BTA. According to him, it was precisely for this reason that he held a meeting with his colleagues from Greece and Romania during the previous week. We plan to address the problem and its impact on the economies in the region to the EC, looking for a common protection mechanism for business in the three countries, Minister Malinov announced. He explained that the first measure is precisely this compensatory mechanism, the real implementation of which starts to be applied from today.
The electricity compensation program for businesses until the end of the year was approved by the government at the end of July after a decision by Parliament.
It foresees that over 633 thousand non-domestic consumers will be able to receive compensation for the price of electricity above BGN 180 per megawatt hour. The budget of the program is BGN 245 million. It is planned that the funds will be paid by the end of March 2025.
For this purpose, however, the European Commission must decide that this is not state aid. In August, the finance and energy ministries sent a letter to Brussels to approve the measure.