Electricity prices will remain high in Romania for at least the next 4-5 years, as long as we use coal for energy production, Bogdan Chirițoiu, president of the Competition Council, said on Thursday.
“It is the EU policy to make polluting energy expensive, economically unattractive. So as long as Romania and other EU countries need this expensive coal energy, prices will remain high. And at least in Romania we don’t see a possibility to replace coal in the next 4-5 years. This means that at least in these 4-5 years we will see high electricity prices”, said Chirițoiu, during a debate on energy issues organised by Expert Forum, Agerpres reports.
He explained that the market price is given by the most expensive energy, coal – in this case.
This means that the support measures granted by the authorities for domestic, vulnerable and industrial consumers will remain in place, the competition authority chairman pointed out.
“On gas, however, my expectation and hope is that gas prices will come down. Russia is Europe’s big source of gas and for various reasons there is speculation that Russia has reduced gas supplies at the moment and that is why we are seeing this increase. Once Russia’s deliveries increase, the price will probably go down not to the pandemic level, but to pre-pandemic levels, like 2019,” said the president of the Competition Council.
Edited for English