At a press conference of the Hydropower Association and the “Alliance of the producers of ecological energy – BG” Associatio, the chairman of BICA Vassil Velev said that as a result of more purposeful than accidental actions some unrealistically high electricity prices are achieved. How to be competitive as electricity prices are 73% higher than those in Germany, to which our industry generates the largest exports. Velev is adamant that we cannot talk about a deficit when we have more than 10,000 MW of capacity, and the actual consumption varies between 3,000 and 5,000 MW. This deficit is artificially created, which leads to huge costs for the electricity industry and makes it uncompetitive.

“During the first decade of August, TPP Maritsa East 2 worked with two of its eight units, having staff many times more than needed to maintain the active units. Households and businesses pay more than BGN 4,000 per month for each of the more than 2,000 employees who work two hours a day under such a regime.

On the other hand, the high price of electricity is due to the fact that we are connected to the Greek market, which is the most expensive market in Europe by definition. We did it before we contacted the Romanian one, from where we can also contact the European one, despite the strong resistance of the employers’ organizations for this to happen.

And if this is not enough, there is a serious case with the Ordinance on the use of surface water. Due to legal misconceptions and successive non-accidental actions, more than 250 hydropower plants, generating the cleanest and cheapest energy in the country, are facing the risk of shutdown, “said Vassil Velev.

According to Velev, these are not small capacities at all, but hundreds of megawatts that balance the electricity system and a factor for maintaining a lower price of electricity. The chairman of BICA commented that the task of energy management is not to create conditions in which several energy oligarchs to earn a lot of money, and society to pay huge bills and the industry to lose competitiveness. Tens of large companies and tens of thousands of employees are forced to stop working because high electricity bills inevitably lead them to bankruptcy.

“The situation is artificially created – manipulative offers are made at night for the purchase of electricity on the principle of” not less than 300 euros per MWh “, which shows that the price is artificially distorted. “Buy only above this high price” bids obviously manipulate the price to manipulate the demand curve and the equilibrium point.

“Employers’ organizations will strongly support the efforts of the Hydropower Association to regulate a legal absurdity, so as not to add their capacity to the pressing problem of non-functioning energy sources, for reasons beyond their control,” said Velev.

The chairman of BICA shared that as a result of such legal uncertainty, 37 billion euros of capital have leaked from Bulgaria in the last 11 years, while only 13 billion euros have been attracted.