A total of 320 complaints linked to unusually high electricity bills in Bulgaria had been filed with the Energy and Water Regulatory Commission by Tuesday, EWRC Chair Plamen Mladenovski said during a hearing before the parliamentary Energy Committee on February 11.

The majority of the complaints target the three electricity distribution companies. Of the submissions received by that point, 152 concern Electrohold, 89 are directed at EVN, and 79 at Energo-Pro. Mladenovski added that an additional 80 complaints were registered later the same day.

According to the regulator’s head, inspections were launched proactively, even before any formal complaints had been submitted. He explained that when the checks began on February 4, the commission had not yet received a single complaint. After a public briefing held on February 5, however, the number of submissions increased sharply.

Mladenovski pointed out that many of the signals come from households that rely on electricity for heating. He stressed that electricity prices themselves cannot explain the higher bills, noting that tariffs have not changed since July 1 and remain among the lowest across the European Union.

He also said that a significant portion of the submissions do not meet the legal requirements for formal complaints. In many cases, consumers have sent copies of their electricity invoices without additional documentation, which complicates and slows down the administrative review process.

The EWRC has requested extensive data from the distribution companies. The regulator will compare the reported electricity consumption with the amounts billed for a comparable period, specifically January of the previous year. While weather conditions vary, Mladenovski said temperature differences are relatively small and should not account for major discrepancies.

The inspections also cover the correct application of tariffs, the length of the billing period, including whether it exceeds 31 days, and the method used to convert amounts on invoices. So far, no irregularities have been found in the currency conversion procedures.

If cases are identified in which bills are two, three, or even four times higher than those from a comparable period, the commission will remove the electricity meters in question and send them for laboratory testing to check their accuracy, Mladenovski said.