Energy Sector Insights

The second half of 2020 has been a period of intense regulatory activity in the energy sector, mainly fueled by the changes implemented to Law no. 123/2012 of electricity and natural gas (Law 123/2012) in July, which had to be subsequently transposed by the National Authority for Energy Regulation (ANRE) in the secondary legislation. Considering the effervescence of the sector depicted in the last months, the DLA Piper Team aims to publish a series of newsletters providing a clearer picture of the legislative framework.

In this newsletter, we briefly present the main regulations and other developments in the energy sector, for the month of October 2020.

Wholesale energy markets

Clarifications regarding the obligations to publish insider information according to REMIT

• Regulation (EU) 1227/2011 on Wholesale Energy Market Integrity and Transparency (REMIT) provides that market participants must make available to the public, effectively and in a timely manner, the insider information that they possess in relation to an entity or installations that the respective market participant, its parent company, or an affiliated entity own or control or whose operational aspects are within the respective participant’s or entity’s attributions, in full or in part;
• The EU Agency for the Cooperation of Energy Regulators (ACER) established that, for ensuring the effective and timely characters of the publication of insider information, such information must be published through a centralised platform that aggregates urgent market messages from multiple participants and allows their immediate dissemination to the public (Insider Information Platform);
• The deadline for complying with the effective publication requirements by market participants is 1 January 2021; following this date, the effective and timely publication requirements are considered as complied with only if the respective insider information is published on an Insider Information Platform;
• Market participants must complete the registration form, for registration in the Register of Participants on the Wholesale Electricity Market, or update their mentions in the register, so as to include the website of the Insider Information Platform where they publish their insider information;
• The publication of insider information according to REMIT may be postponed only in exceptional situations, in order to avoid affecting the legitimate interests of the market participant; The participant that postponed the publication shall not make transaction decisions based on the unpublished insider information (some exemptions under art. 4 par. 3 b) of REMIT);
• The postponement must be notified to ANRE and ACER through the notification platform on ACER’s REMIT Portal;
• A list of the Insider Information Platforms that applied for approval with ACER and the status of their approval process can be found here.

Publication by ANRE of the updated monthly monitoring matrices for the wholesale electricity market

• In accordance with the Methodology for monitoring the wholesale electricity market the monthly monitoring matrices have been revised, in order to reflect the changes to the structure of the electricity market which were effected since 1 September 2020.

Connection to the grid system

Regulation regarding the technical connection to the natural gas distribution system (approved by ANRE Order no. 178/2020 - effective as of 14 October 2020)

• Natural gas transport and system operators must complete the technical connection of applicants within 180 days from obtaining the relevant building permit;
• The connection costs shall be recovered by the operators through the transport tariffs.

Procedure for connecting consumption units of final non-household client type users to the public utility electricity networks through connection installations having less than 2,500 meters (approved by ANRE Order no. 183/2020 – pending publication in the Official Gazette of Romania)

• The costs for designing and execution of the technical connection for consumption units of final non-household client type users are covered by the concession holding distribution operators;
• The connection shall be finalized within 90 days from the date on which the approval/authorization for the connection installation has been granted, including its reception and placing into service;
• Users must finalize the utilization installation and submit the utilization installation file prepared by the contractor, before the conclusion of the technical connection execution agreement by the distribution operator.

Last resort suppliers

Regulation regarding the last resort supply of natural gas (approved by ANRE Order no. 173/2020 - effective as of 7 October 2020)

• Establishes the principles for selection of last resort natural gas suppliers by ANRE, terms for performing and ceasing the activity as last resort natural gas supplier and pricing principles to be applied by such suppliers, as well as the procedure for taking over the consumption units (Romanian: loc consum) of final users that are not supplied with natural gas from any other sources;

Regulation for selecting the last resort electricity suppliers (approved by ANRE Order no. 188/2020 - pending publication in the Official Gazette of Romania)

• The Regulation establishes the ANRE procedure for selecting the last resort electricity suppliers, which shall be active starting with 1 January 2020;
• Suppliers selected as last resort suppliers must publish, on their websites, their prices for supplying electricity under the last resort regime/universal service, for each area of the network;
• Suppliers that currently hold the status of last resort supplier and wish to maintain it must submit the selection documentation within 10 days from the Regulation’s entry into force;
• Suppliers that are not currently last resort suppliers, but would like to be selected as such must submit the selection documentation at least 30 days prior to the date from which they request to be selected as last resort suppliers.

Others

Regulation regarding confidential information at the level of ANRE (approved by ANRE Order no. 179/2020 – effective as of 19 October 2020)

• Economic operators shall indicate the confidentiality of their correspondence with ANRE by marking the respective documents (or sections thereof) with the mention Contains confidential information.