The energy crisis has put the regulatory authority in front of an activity for which it was not prepared, given that it had to validate millions of invoices and settle over 20 billion lei, while payments of about 9 billion lei are still pending, said on Tuesday the secretary general of the National Energy Regulatory Authority, Mircea Man.

“We are going through an extremely difficult time and the authority itself is going through difficult times because that energy crisis forced us to do an activity for which we were not prepared, that compensation. ANRE had to validate all the invoices and we are talking about millions of invoices for all operators, for all suppliers. It was an extremely difficult activity, we did not have any means. You have seen over time that the ordinance was modified, which created big problems, taking the best specialists from the authority to do this, settling over 20 billion lei, it is not very easy. And today we still have to settle around 9 billion lei”, mentioned Mircea Man, quoted by Agerpres.

At the same time, he referred to the “pressure of the operators to raise the rate of return” from 6.9 to 11.9.

“If today we had a rate of return of 11.9, we were talking about a tariff that had no influence on what we have in the field today, but although we are very aware of the need for investments, of the great need for investments, we were cautious and came up with a rate of return of 6.9 – and for the first time the authority has a new methodology with many factors put on the table, which led us to a rate of 6.9. We recognize the need for investments, but we must see and weigh up how much the final customer, whether household or industrial, can pay. The regulatory authority takes all the steps and conducts dialogue with producers, suppliers, and distributors for all the problems that arise. And there are problems raised daily by distributors and suppliers,” added the Secretary General of the National Energy Regulatory Authority, Mircea Man.