Ombudsman Opposes proposed 30% Rise in Sofia Heating Prices

The institution of the Ombudsman has expressed firm opposition to a proposed sharp increase of nearly 30% in the price of thermal energy by Sofia District Heating company - Toplofikatsiya Sofia, the press office of the institution said on April 2.

“A rise of this scale is unaffordable for thousands of households already under significant financial pressure,” Ombudsman Velislava Delcheva wrote to the Head of the Energy and Water Regulatory Commission, Plamen Mladenovski.

The public defender stressed that amid ongoing instability and tensions in the Middle East, which are affecting energy prices, increases should not be automatically and uncritically passed on to end consumers.

“It is unacceptable that, in a situation where people’s incomes are not rising at the same pace, the cost of basic services should increase sharply and without social balance. Energy security cannot be built at the expense of households’ financial security,” Delcheva said.

She added that it was particularly worrying that the proposal comes against a backdrop of strong public dissatisfaction with the quality of the service, high heating bills, lack of transparency in pricing, and a resulting perception of unfairness.

Delcheva also pointed out that during the current pricing period, Sofia’s district heating company has stopped publishing data on over- or under-recovered revenues resulting from forecasts embedded in regulated prices.

Moreover, for seven of the past ten months in the current pricing period, the company has in practice paid for natural gas at prices lower than those forecast in the existing heat tariff charged to consumers.

For this reason, the Ombudsman is urging the regulator to establish clearly, objectively and precisely the amount of any over-recovered revenue by Sofia District Heating during the 2025–2026 pricing period, and to reflect this in prices from 1 July 2026.

“It is also of great importance that, when setting thermal energy prices, the quality of heating services and the actual implementation of the declared repair and investment programmes of Sofia district heating and other district heating companies are taken into account,” Delcheva added.

She further called on the regulator to carry out an exceptionally thorough and transparent analysis of all components in the proposed price, not to approve any increase automatically without clear and publicly justified arguments, and to safeguard the public interest by ensuring that the burden is fairly distributed rather than falling entirely on the members of the public.

On 1 April, Sofia District Heating company (Toplofikatsiya Sofia) published on its official website an application submitted on 31 March to the utilities regulator, proposing a price of €89.63/MWh — a 29% increase — to come into force from 1 July 2026.

In its reasoning, the company cited “a significant rise in natural gas prices following the escalation of the conflict in the Middle East, the need for intensive repair works on the heat transmission network and production facilities in the next regulatory period, as well as the overall increase in the prices of raw materials and supplies.” The requested increase also includes “realistic and technically justified values for sales volumes and technological transmission costs, aligned with reported results for 2025.”