In a move that will help the financially struggling national power monopoly EPS, Serbia's energy regulator AERS on Wednesday approved a 29% increase in electricity transmission tariffs for large industrial consumers from March and a 9.2% rise for retail customers at a later stage, which will be included in energy bills once the state-run utility EPS gets approval to raise power prices, Reuters reported.
The government has traditionally used energy prices as a welfare policy tool, capping them to defend living standards. This has forced EPS to sell energy below market prices, causing the utility to pile up big losses. Even so, people and companies still avoid paying. EPS says it is owed RSD120bn (€1.07bn) by customers, and blames losses of RSD33bn last year on absorbing the cost of subsidised tariffs. The government has said it may allow a 10 to 12% hike in power prices in the first quarter of 2013.
Serbia in January opened its electricity market for some 30 large industrial consumers that account for nearly 10% of overall consumption. The target is to fully liberalise the market by 2015.
Source: bne