Moldovan energy regulator informs about way of invoicing consumers for state of emergency period

Chisinau, 7 April /MOLDPRES/ - As a result of more demands received from consumers and operators of the services regulated by the National Energy Regulatory Agency (ANRE) as to the way of establishing the estimative consumption of electric energy when issuing invoices during the state of emergency, ANRE came up with additional clarifications.    

In accordance with the point 2 of the Decision No 86/2020 from 24 March 2020 of ANRE’s administrative board on the ban to cease the supply of services provided and to apply penalties to household consumers of electric energy, thermal energy, natural gas and drinking water during the state of emergency, the Agency imperatively establishes the way of determining the estimative consumption when issuing the invoices on the state of emergency period, which is to be applied by all owners of licence from the sectors regulated by ANRE, without exception and namely, based on the average daily consumption registered on the similar calendar period of the year before.  

The reasoning of the concerned provision comes from the need not to allow increased invoices in an unjustified way (for instance, by applying the way of calculation of the estimative consumption determined based on the average consumption for the last three months’ period), in conditions when the period of the last three months coincided with the one of the winter season – a period when the consumption of services (especially of natural gas, thermal energy, electric energy) is obviously higher against the period of the spring-summer months. For this reason, taking into account the need to avoid the exposing to the risk of contamination with the COVID-19 virus of the staff of operators involved in reading data of the measurement equipment, the Agency allowed the issuance by the owners of licences of estimative invoices on the state of emergency period, yet, on the justified condition concerning the determining of the estimative consumption, according to the data recorded on the similar period of the previous year.      

It is worth being noted that, under the Article 16, paragraph (10) from the Law No 174/2017 on the energy sector, the Agency’s decisions produce compulsory effects. Proceeding from the provisions of the Article 13, paragraphs (2)-(4) of the Administrative Code, an administrative act gets validity with the content with which it is communicated and remains valid as long as it is not withdrawn, cancelled in another way or was not consumed by time’s expiration or in another way. The administrative acts are observed by the issuing public authority, other public authorities, their recipients and third persons.  

Thus, an eventual infringement by the owners of licences of the provisions of the Decision No 86/2020 of ANRE’s administrative board will represent component of the contravention stipulated in the Article 169 of the Contravention Code and will impose its calling to contraventional account in the way established by law.      

ANRE welcomes the decision of some operators of the regulated sectors, which, during the emergency period, implemented new ways of distance sending of indexes of measurement equipment.

State of emergency is declared all over Moldova on the period 17 March – 15 May, given the coronavirus pandemic.