Authority wants to end virtually all power bill price clauses

RAE, the Regulatory Authority for Energy, has prepared a plan aiming to abolish all price-related clauses included in electricity bills except for one linked with fluctuations of the System Marginal Price (SMP), or the wholesale electricity price, sources have informed.

The overall objective of this plan, which could be forwarded for public consultation within the next few days, is to offer full transparency to consumers on procedures determining their electricity bill costs.

An existing clause enabling electricity suppliers to revise prices in accordance with CO2 emission cost levels would need to be abolished if the plan is implemented. Power utility PPC has already triggered this clause in reaction to rising CO2-related costs.

The existing SMP clause, currently triggered by all suppliers except for PPC, will be subject to strict rules, enabling consumers to know the cost of their bills with simplicity and precision by  factoring the SMP price into a formula for an immediate result, according to the RAE plan.

The complexity of the current billing system makes it difficult for consumers to make safe comparisons of supplier offers.