The National Regulatory Authority for Energy (NRAE) announced that it has approved on 8 February 2017 the Order no. 7/2017 regarding the Rules for publishing information on transactions concluded on the electricity market (Information Publishing Order). Although the new enactment itself is not yet available, it is expected to be published in the Romanian Official Gazette in the following days.
The Information Publishing Order implements the recent amendment of the Electricity and Natural Gas Law no. 123/2012, which provides that the operator of electricity markets (OPCOM) will publish on its website (i) the prices and quantities deriving from transactions concluded on the centralised electricity markets, but also (ii) the agreements concluded on the regulated or export markets.
The Information Publishing Order basically sets out an obligation for the parties involved in agreements concluded on regulated or export electricity markets to deliver to OPCOM copies of such agreements within a maximum of seven days as of the date when they were concluded. It would appear that a seven days deadline for delivery of copies to OPCOM will apply also to outstanding agreements concluded before the entering into force of the Information Publishing Order – this aspect was not entirely clear in NRAE’s release.
According to the NRAE’s release, the Information Publishing Order will lead to increased transparency on the electricity market, establishment of equitable conditions for access to information by the market participants, as well as to improvement of the competition environment. The introduction of the obligation to publish electricity export contracts was however criticized by market players.
This article was also published on Lexology.
