ANRE explained what citizens need to do to benefit from differentiated electricity prices according to hours of consumption

Chisinau, Jan 6 /MOLDPRES/- Moldovan companies and households have the possibility to pay differentiated tariffs for electricity, depending on the hours of consumption, with lower prices at night and higher during the day. The National Agency for Energy Regulation (ANRE) explained the steps to be followed by citizens who want to benefit from the new mechanism.

ANRE said that in order to have differentiated prices per hour of consumption, it is not necessarily the installation of expensive smart meters with remote reading. The majority of modern electronic meters are equipped with functions to record electricity by hourly intervals. These meters are read in a similar way to regular meters, except that the meter reader not only gets the monthly consumption summary figure from the meter, but also the amount of energy consumed in each of the hourly intervals set by ANRE. Respectively, the total monthly energy consumed will be separated into 2 parts: the energy consumed between 7:00 and 23:00 (more expensive energy), and the energy consumed between 23:00 and 7:00 (cheaper energy).

Furthermore, the vast majority of electronic meters installed on non-household consumers are also capable of recording the energy consumed in hourly intervals.

For non-domestic consumers who opt for differentiated pricing, it is recommended that they first check whether the meter they are currently using is capable of recording energy at hourly intervals. 

As regards household consumers, the legislation stipulates that if the consumer requests the installation of a meter allowing hourly recording of the electricity consumed, he/she bears the costs of the purchase, maintenance and replacement of the metering equipment.

ANRE noted that before applying to the mechanism of electricity supply at interval pricing, it is recommended that each consumer should make an analysis of their current consumption, taking into account the energy consumption that could potentially be transferred to the night hours. The benefits will only come as consumption behavior changes.

The decision to apply differentiated electricity tariffs according to the hours of consumption was approved by ANRE at the end of last week. Thus, household consumers connected to the low voltage (0.4 kV) distribution networks of Premier Energy Distribution will pay 4.32 lei per kWh consumed between 7.00 and 23.00 and 3.31 lei per kWh consumed between 23:00 and 7:00.

Consumers in the northern part of the country, in the service area of FEE Nord, connected to the low voltage grids, will have daytime tariffs of 4.89 lei per kWh and nighttime tariffs of 3.90 lei per kWh.