Bulgaria’s energy regulator announced on Friday that power prices for households will fall by 0.11% from 1 August.

The drop has become possible after the government and parliament adopted measures that allowed to find reserves in the energy sector, Ivan Ivanov, chairman of the Energy and Water Regulatory Commission KEVR, said in a statement following a closed-door meeting of the regulator.

The initial version for a change in electricity prices for households unveiled by KEVR last month, which did not enter into force, called for a rise of approximately 2% from 1 July. 

The price for household consumers in Bulgaria’s western regions supplied by CEZ Bulgaria will drop by 0.63%.

For the consumers in southwestern Bulgaria where EVN Bulgaria is the regional power distributor, the price will fall by 0.44%.

However, the households in northeastern Bulgaria, where Energo-Pro is the power distributor, will pay electricity prices that will be 1.9% higher.  

The so-called ‘obligation to society’ fee will be set at BGN 38 per megawatthour (MWh) for both households and industrial consumers. 

For industrial consumers using more than 30 gigawatthours (GWh) of electricity per year, the ‘obligation to society’ fee will be BGN 18.77/MWh. So far the fee has been set at BGN 18.93/MWh.  

Those industrial consumers using more than 10 GWh per year the fee was set at BGN 26.65, while for those with annual consumption below 10 GWh it was set at BGN 37.90.

"Making the fee equal for both types of consumers is needed because, first, the law requires it to be the same for all end consumers and, second, because a huge deficit has been accumulated at NEK [the state-run National Eelectricity Company] that we have to cut," Ivanov said.

He added the new prices should take effect on1 August, or otherwise the financial deficit at NEK will continue to increase, swelling by about BGN 60 M a month.

KEVR could change power prices again after three months if additional reserves are found in the energy sector, Ivanov said.