There is one thing in common between liberalization and "Botaş" - society is not well enough acquainted with the trends in energy. This is the opinion of Yulian Popov - an expert in the field of environment and climate change and a former minister in charge.
According to him, gas consumption is falling and will continue to fall.
We are not dependent and there is no need to be dependent on Russian gas, he categorically told the Bulgarian National Radio and emphasized that the issue of gas supplies to Bulgaria is not that dramatic. According to him, however, when these things are not known, it leads to panic.
"Liberalization is starting - this is the solution, however, everything that liberalization can lead to - price spikes and drops, will be compensated by the budget or the Energy Security Fund. This type of state intervention in the electricity system is very vicious. But, unfortunately, in Bulgaria, with these tense political relations and these total lies that are being circulated, it is almost inevitable for the government to make normal decisions regarding the electricity system," Popov commented.
In his words, liberalization is the most social approach. Stopping it is very unsocial, he specified.
"What this stop does is subsidize the rich and the wasteful. The country needs to have a good policy to support energy-poor and vulnerable enterprises. The rest of the people and enterprises must enter the market, as is the case for anything else. There is no reason for electricity to be supported in this way on a shoestring. This is devastating for the national budget, the energy transition, efficiency and everything else.
About the major power outage in Spain, Yulian Popov commented:
"A system failure is not unusual. The question is raised whether it is related to renewable energy. It is not related".
According to him, the most stable systems in the EU are those of Germany and Denmark. Denmark has the highest jumps in renewable energy, reaching over 140% of its consumption at times, he specified.
According to him, it is very important to see all the analyses of what exactly the problem is.
"The countries are connected. They should have much higher connectivity. It is very important that the systems are managed very well".
In recent years, Bulgaria has been serious about stabilizing the system, the expert believes, adding: "The system operator is making a lot of efforts to upgrade it, to digitalize it, so that the more complex electricity system can be managed well. If it is managed well and is technically secured, the probability of a collapse is very small".