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Over 2.2 billion leva will collect the energy fund this year

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Over 2.2 billion leva will collect the energy fund this year

A record $ 2.23 billion is expected to be collected in 2019 in the „Electricity system security fund“ which covers state spending on preferential prices for RES, US power stations and co-generators. The amount is 60% higher than the figure of 1.39 billion levs reported in 2018, there are two reasons for the sharp increasing. On the one hand, this is the high cost of CO2 quotas, as the state`s revenues from their sales are exactly in this fund. On the other hand, after the 1st of July, 2018, all proceeds from the "Duty to Society" price are accrued in the fund`s budget. The fund also includes a kind of tax from all producers and importers of electricity - 5% of their electricity sales revenue.

The increase in the Fund`s money is related to the extra costs that it has to make. These include, for example, the premiums paid to district heating plants, CHP plants, as well as RES with an installed capacity of 4 MW up. Before the 1st of July 2018, their electricity was purchased at preferential prices from NEK, and these public utility costs were covered by the "Duty to Society" price.

Now the producers of the electricity sell their energy on the stock exchange but receive from the Fund premias, which compensate the difference between the market price and the one they had in their long-term contracts. That is why the fund already includes revenues from the "Duty to Society" price, which are about 1.2 billion levs. The fund ended in 2018 with a surplus of more than BGN 300 mln, the expectations being that this result will be twice as big in 2019.