The number of companies, licensed by the State Commission on Energy and Water Regulation (SCEWR) to trade in electricity on the liberalised Bulgarian power market, has risen to 32. This was written in a special information brochure, which the SCEWR would make public on Tuesday, October 9, in Sofia and some other large cities in Bulgaria, Mediapool.bg said.

The brochures explained to home users how to pick an electricity supplier. The documents also showed the scope of guarantees the regulatory body provided them in case they would decide to change one trader for another, without being cut off from the power grid. Similar guarantees applied to cases, when customers would want to switch back to the services of the limited number of players on the regulated segment of the market, namely CEZ, E.ON and EVN.

“The brochure was prepared by us to show that we, as an institution, are stimulating the development of a competitive energy market and are securing equality among energy companies, as well as end users,” Konstantin Shoushoulov said, as quoted by mediapool.bg. He said it was too early to talk about serious competition in the market for household electricity supply but each step in that direction was right.

The same view was shared by power traders, which wer companies owned by the main player on the market – National Electric Company, Kozlodui Nuclear Power Plant, Maritsa Iztok 3 thermal power plant (property of the businessman Hristo Kovachki), CEZ, E.ON, EVN and others.
For now, the companies said, the end users would prefer to buy electricity on the regulated market, where prices were controlled by the SCEWR, instead of on the liberalised one. This vicious circle could end when the SCEWR would discontinue the artificial reduction of the tariff and the accumulation of reserve power from Kozlodui.