RAE, the Regulatory Authority for Energy, seeking to restore order in the retail electricity market, has briefed suppliers that they cannot launch any new offers to consumers if these have not been announced by the 20th of each month, for each forthcoming month, as required by recently introduced rules.
The authority, in a document forwarded to all the country’s suppliers, has stressed that all offers intended for each forthcoming month must be announced by the 20th of each preceding month. No additional offers are permitted beyond this date, RAE underlined.
Although rules on this requirement were introduced approximately nine months ago, suppliers, in more recent times, have tended to wait for power utility PPC, the dominant market player, as well as for fellow independent suppliers, to announce their offers for each forthcoming month before adjusting accordingly with delayed offers of their own, as late as the next day.
Suppliers have been found to offer below-cost tariffs as temporary pullers aimed at luring new customers before adjusting these offers to regular rates.
In additional action, RAE also plans to develop a series of new price-related measures, including a price-comparison tool, a retail monitoring tool, a new data base, an energy-savings platform offering households tips, as well as a RAE online platform offering consumers advice over tariff disputes with suppliers.