Electricity pricing

Noon and midnight hours will be the cheapest in electricity prices under a plan by the Department of Energy’s Environment and Energy Ministry to move consumption hours to zones with lower charges for households and businesses.

Employers' organizations in Bulgaria are urging the government to extend the compensation program for high electricity prices into 2025. In a recent letter, they highlighted the sharp increase in electricity prices, with November's price on the energy exchange reaching 328.09 leva/MWh, making it the second highest in the EU, just 28 cents below Romania's rate.

The increase in wholesale electricity rates has largely been absorbed this month by major power suppliers, including market leaders Public Power Corporation (PPC) and Protergia. As a result, the Energy Ministry announced on Friday a minimal subsidy for electricity bills, amounting to 1.5 cents per kilowatt-hour, covering nine out of 10 households in Greece for December.

The Ministry of Environment and Energy announces today, Friday, December 6, 2024, the amount of the emergency support for electricity bills concerning December consumption.

Specifically, the subsidies for electricity in residential tariffs and for all primary and secondary residences, without income criteria and regardless of the supplier, are structured as follows:

The "green" electricity tariffs for December range from 15.5 cents per kilowatt-hour to over 20 cents, according to the regulatory authority's website where the new prices were posted on Monday.

The government's intervention to contain electricity prices in December will ultimately be limited in scope, since the major suppliers, under the threat of extraordinary taxation on profits from production activity, are proceeding to absorb most of the increases in the wholesale market.

The government is set to implement a €100 million subsidy package to shield households and businesses from soaring wholesale electricity prices.

The plan includes direct subsidies and tax breaks for consumers, combined with a temporary tax on electricity producers' profits. 

Mobile alerts via SMS or Viber will be sent to consumers with smart meters when the price of electricity in the next day’s wholesale market is about to exceed 200 euros a megawatt hour.

Turkey plans to remove government subsidies for high volume residential electricity users from February next year, Energy Minister Alparslan Bayraktar said on Wednesday.

Greece is moving away from mandatory green electricity tariffs toward fixed-rate plans as energy suppliers adapt to regulatory changes set for 2025. The government announced that green tariffs, which simplify price comparisons for consumers, will no longer be compulsory for new customers starting January 1, 2025.