The Association of Prosumers and Energy Communities (APCE) is calling for the immediate withdrawal or a radical revision of the draft emergency ordinance through which the Ministry of Energy seeks to transpose Directive (EU) 2024/1711 on improving the functioning of the electricity market.
According to APCE, consumers and energy communities are 'collateral victims of administrative incompetence', while the transposition is carried out 'in a deeply flawed, unprofessional manner, contrary to both the spirit and the letter of the European directive', agerpres reports.
"Under the pretext of transposing the Directive, the Ministry of Energy introduces into the draft emergency ordinance a series of long-standing failures of the National Energy Regulatory Authority (ANRE), which have no connection whatsoever with Romania's transposition obligations towards the European Commission, artificially presenting them as European requirements. Essential definitions from the Directive are deliberately altered, pseudo-instructions are introduced for ANRE without any coercive mechanisms, and deadlines, conditions and obligations are stripped of legal substance, in a profoundly defective legislative style typical of Romanian practices that merely simulate reform," APCE states in a press release.
Among the provisions in the draft emergency ordinance that the association considers "most serious" are: the deliberate dismantling of energy communities and the downgrading of prosumers' status; the so-called "flexible connection", which entails rationing access to energy instead of investing in grid infrastructure; and the reintroduction of "electoral handouts" in the form of legal obligations imposed on local authorities.
According to APCE, members of energy communities pay network charges, bear imbalance costs and are subject to arbitrary limitations, while prosumers lose their legal status and are reclassified as 'Active Customers' once they join an energy community or share energy.
"Only a profoundly ill-intentioned approach or a complete lack of economic logic can justify forcing prosumers who are members of energy communities to pay network charges and imbalance costs comparable to those borne by commercial suppliers," the association argues.
APCE further states that, through the forced reclassification of prosumers as "Active Customers", those who join energy communities or wish to share energy produced at home or in apartment buildings lose all rights specific to prosumers, even in cases where energy is provided free of charge to hospitals, nurseries, kindergartens or other public institutions.
Moreover, instead of promoting the modernisation of distribution networks, the Ministry of Energy is proposing a regressive and dangerous solution: rationing access to energy through the introduction of the so-called "flexible connection".
APCE underlines that this provision allows distribution operators to arbitrarily limit the available power for consumers and prosumers, depending on their own capacity or discretion, imposing low-capacity connections and, absurdly, forcing consumers to bear the costs of power-limiting devices.
In other words, instead of investments, the proposal restricts access to energy for all market participants alike: prosumers, household consumers and industrial users.
APCE believes this approach is entirely contrary to Directive (EU) 2024/1711, as in its proposed form it legalises incompetence and chronic underinvestment in distribution networks, violates the principles of non-discrimination and fair access to the grid, and undermines the energy transition and citizens' active participation in the production and self-consumption of green energy.
Rationing energy consumption instead of modernising infrastructure represents an extremely dangerous direction, one that risks irreversibly undermining public trust in the Romanian state's energy policies, the prosumers' organisation warns.
APCE also argues that the Ministry of Energy is reinventing the protection of vulnerable consumers in a purely populist manner, by legally obliging local authorities to pay the energy bills of vulnerable consumers.
"In practice, local authorities - many of which are unable to cover their own operating expenses - are forced to pay bills from local budgets, that is, from the taxes of citizens who work, pay their bills and meet their tax obligations on time. This is a form of forced solidarity imposed by law, in which town halls become providers of electoral 'handouts', without resources and without governmental responsibility," the release adds.
The Association of Prosumers and Energy Communities will, within the legal deadline, submit a coherent and comprehensive set of proposed amendments, accompanied by legal and technical justifications, to the Ministry of Energy, and will challenge the ordinance in its current form before the administrative courts.
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