Konstantin Konstantinov: High prices of natural gas in Europe dragged up the prices of the energy exchange in our country

The high price of natural gas in Europe has probably raised the prices of energy exchanges, which is reflected in the electricity market in Bulgaria. This was explained to BTA by the executive director of the Bulgarian Independent Energy Exchange (BIEE) Konstantin Konstantinov on the occasion of the record expensive electricity for business of BGN 839.61 per megawatt-hour, which was bought today, March 8, in the Day Ahead segment. "What I think and is confirmed by conversations with colleagues, the reason is the high price of gas, on which electricity production at European level is highly dependent," he said. According to him, in Europe, when there is a serious demand for energy and a large part of its production is related to the price of gas, this "attracts all markets", regardless of whether they are in a market union. He gave the example that prices have risen even on the Turkish energy market.

Asked whether Bulgaria's temporary exit from one market in Europe would lower electricity prices on the energy exchange, Konstantinov said, from a market point of view it would not be justified to do so, because in this way the free movement of goods within the EU and the treaties are being violated. According to the Executive Director of the IBEX, only a systemic problem is the only reason for stopping the export of electricity and isolating the Bulgarian market area from the European one.

The mergers of the energy markets with Romania and Greece have helped the market to develop the Bulgarian energy exchange, added the executive director of the IBEX. He reminded that the management of the stock exchange was criticized some time ago for the fact that the unification of the Bulgarian with the Greek energy exchange took place first, and not with the Romanian one. But the Romanian energy market was not cheap at all then, and is currently one of the most expensive because it is the "door to Europe", and prices are high there now. The interesting thing at the moment is that during the daytime obviously in Greece the consumption is not so great. In addition, they have a fairly large production of electricity from solar parks. Therefore, during the day the electricity flow is from Greece to Bulgaria and the capacities at the maximum levels are fully filled. "If we did not have market connections with Greece, the prices in Bulgaria during the day would be even higher, because 600 megawatts come from there every hour, which suppresses the price," Konstantinov commented.

The executive director of the IBEX suggests that there would be interest in long-term contracts, but he has not seen a one-year tender in a long time. He pointed out that most long-term auctions are one-month or at most three-quarter. Konstantinov was adamant that no one can say what is expected on the IBEX market and what the electricity prices will be.