President Radev vetoed the amendments to the Energy Act

Bulgaria’s Head of State, Rumen Radev, on January 25, signed a decree returning the Law on Amendments and Additions to the Energy Law, adopted by the 48th National Assembly on January 12, 2023, for further discussion.

The President disputes the introduced time interval of the financial settlement of one hour prepared by the electricity system operator and recalls that the European law provides for a period of 15 minutes for the settlement of the imbalance.

"By § 24 of the EA Amendment Act, a provision has been adopted which deviates from the aforementioned norms of Regulation (EU) 2017/2195 and Regulation (EU) 2019/943. It postpones the mandatory balancing of 15 minutes already introduced in Bulgaria and returns the settlement performed on a time interval of one hour.

If the settlement period is not as close as possible to the delivery time, the result will be less accurate forecasting by trading participants and the reporting of higher amounts of trade imbalances. As a consequence, the operator will realise higher costs for regulating capacities and may end up with reduced water storage in large dams. The increase in the operator's regulation costs will also lead to a higher cost of balancing energy, which will have an adverse financial effect on the consumer. Commercial exports and exchanges of electricity with other countries will also be affected," the President's reasoning said.

According to Rumen Radev, the changes are inconsistent with EU law and would deviate from the EU-wide framework, hindering its socio-economic benefits in Bulgaria.

"The compulsory balancing for 15 minutes has been introduced after a detailed analysis of the systems in 36 countries, most of them from the European Union. The application of 15-minute balancing periods contributes to better use of existing interconnectors, higher volumes of electricity exports from Bulgaria to neighbouring countries, better frequency regulation, more active participation of traders in system balancing, improved forecasting and reduced balancing prices. They are beneficial for both the electricity system and the commercial operators and have a positive public effect," the Head of State's motives further said.