Bad news - electricity prices will rise

Member of the Board of Directors of the Energy Regulatory Agency, Branislav Prelević, announced that the price of electricity will rise globally and in the long term, and that it will rise faster in Montenegro than in the European Union.

Prelevic compares Montenegro with the incomparably richer Norway, stressing that the price of electricity in that country is twice as high as in Montenegro.

"Perhaps it is not the time for bad news, but my profession requires me to be honest. The price of electricity will rise globally and in the long term. There are several reasons for this and - none against. The main reason is an increase in consumption that is not accompanied by adequate production, i.e. supply.

The others, the so-called price growth triggers, are no less important. The impact of energy production and consumption on the environment is finally evident and someone has to pay for it, either by stimulating renewable energy sources, or by penalizing those who emit CO2, i.e. gases that cause the greenhouse effect.

Consumers will pay for all this everywhere in the world, partly through the budget, partly through tariff increases," said Prelevic in an open letter to the Montenegrin public, which is reported by the newspaper Elektroprivreda.

Social peace bought with low electricity prices

Prelevic spoke out after the January protest of citizens due to the poor economic and social situation, where they demanded the annulment of RAE's decision to increase the price of electricity and the dismissal of its members, calling it "civilian" Montenegro.

It is not civil if an independent institution is judged on the street!

"It's not civil if an independent institution is judged on the street! A farce has been made out of an increase in the price of electricity.

Price changes will and will always cause dissatisfaction of both energy companies and consumers, and where both are dissatisfied, the Government is also dissatisfied," Prelevic pointed out.

He adds that the problems in the energy sector of Montenegro are numerous, accumulated over decades of a wrong policy in which social peace was bought with the low price of electricity.

"Whether the tariff increase for households should have been exactly 6,8 percent more or less is a technical question, but from a professional point of view it is very important," said Prelevic, stressing that he would not comment on it but leave it to the Administrative Court to rule on the lawsuits. consumer and EPCG.

The single market leads to better things

Prelevic links the announcement that the price will rise faster than in the EU to the formation of a single liberalized market and the fulfillment of requirements and harmonization with EU regulations in the energy field.

"The single electricity market is established with the idea of ​​ensuring the abolition of monopolies, the establishment of competition, the liquidity of electricity outside the borders of a certain country or region. Everything is in the interest of ensuring security of supply, as the ultimate goal, and lowering monopoly prices.

The catch is that the prices in that part of Europe (the West) were really unrealistically high, conditioned by the monopoly positions of the companies there, while in this part of Europe (the East), those same monopoly companies only got an obligation from that monopoly, i.e. the directive that social peace should be kept as the apple of one's eye.

The result of such a policy is clear: low tariffs, redundant employees, spillover of potential profits into the budget and underinvestment, i.e. the inability of companies to finance the construction of new capacities on their own. Does anything here sound familiar to you," asks Prelevic.

The catch is that the prices in that part of Europe (the West) were really unrealistically high, conditioned by the monopoly positions of the companies there, while in this part of Europe (the East), those same monopoly companies only got an obligation from that monopoly, i.e. the directive that social peace should be kept as the apple of one's eye

He emphasizes that the single electricity market will bring reliable supply, the possibility for an unsatisfied consumer to change the company that supplies him with electricity, but at prices that will be higher than today.

"More precisely, the prices will never reach the European average due to the structure of our production, but - they will be higher. Regardless of the personnel composition of the RAE," Prelevic pointed out.

Prelevic announced, among other things: "Hugo Chávez nationalized energy companies in Venezuela and said that fuel and energy are (almost) free." Sounds kind of familiar to me. Venezuela is far away, but kindred spirits always find each other".

He says that the Government can influence prices through social policy - subsidies for consumers "in a state of social need" or to give up energy obligations on the way to the EU and simply "propose the abolition of RAE".

The RAE member did not write about the insufficient investments of Elektroprivreda, due to which the Government justified the sale of a minority stake in EPCG and allowed the Italian A2A to manage the company, nor about the electricity market that was formally established in Montenegro, but did not take off.

Who's kidding?

Prelevic assessed that the price of the social policy, which was conducted for decades behind the back of the power system of Montenegro, is now being paid. He emphasizes that the consequence of such a policy is a situation in which "consumers are not used to, let alone feel the obligation to pay for the electricity they have consumed".

Through prices, consumers pay for technical losses in the distribution and transmission network, the level of which is determined without new data

"Today, those who steal electricity are not thieves. At international gatherings of energy experts, jokes are told "about the Montenegrins who invented a network without losses". production facility.

The media is full of trick questions about whether we pay the most expensive electricity in the region. "Neither do we have the highest price in the region, nor do we have the most expensive electricity in relation to net salaries, nor is it important to compare ourselves with the region," Prelević believes.

Through prices, consumers pay for technical losses in the distribution and transmission network, the level of which is determined without new data.

The Constitutional Court judged that consumers are unconstitutionally burdened with losses according to the rules of the RAE, after which the regulator removed from the prices those of a commercial nature, which also include "someone's" theft.

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