Eastern Europe's price for electricity is higher on the Day-Ahead Market than Western Europe's, as a result of the continuous increase in electricity demand in the Eastern area, claims the president of the Smart Energy Association (AEI), Dumitru Chisalita, in a research sent to AGERPRES on Tuesday.
"This is due to the continuous increase in electricity demand in the Eastern area following the increase in electricity imports in Ukraine (due to the destruction of the electricity production infrastructure) and the Republic of Moldova (due to the reduction in the quantities of gas that reaches this country for electricity production). And this situation came with capacity bottlenecks in the network in Central European countries (Austria, Slovakia, Hungary)," stated the president of the AEI in an analysis, transmitted to AGERPRES.
According to the same source, after the synchronisation of Ukraine and the Republic of Moldova with the European grid (March 2022, in emergency mode), energy flows in the eastern region increased due to the fact that Ukraine and the Republic of Moldova started importing energy through Hungary, Slovakia and Romania.
The analysis mentions that these new flows in Eastern Europe increased the load on the east-west interconnection lines (Austria, Slovakia, Hungary a central node of the ENTSO-E grid). At the same time, the new flows made redispatching more difficult (system operators had to limit the transfers available between certain areas for stability) and accentuated the price differences between Western Europe (where the grid is dense and interconnected) and Eastern Europe (where there are grid bottlenecks).
"Export restrictions in countries in the central part of Europe or limited transfer capacity have determined that the flow of cheaper energy from the "surplus" area to the more "deficit" area has been restricted. This has reduced the possibilities for prices in the eastern areas to "equalise" with those in the west," the document also states.
According to the research, the "immense" disparity in prices mainly in Bulgaria, Greece and Romania against the rest of the countries is based on a variety of factors, both "apparent and hidden", such as climatic, geopolitical and structural (generation mix, networks, interconnections).
According to the same source, former Minister of Energy, Sebastian Burduja, has requested from the European Union a compensation mechanism for the states in Eastern Europe, affected by network blockages and higher electricity prices.
"Romania argued that the persistent price differences - even over 20% compared to the West - are generated by congestion in the transport infrastructure in Central Europe, not by the local market. The proposal, however, was followed by concrete actions at the European level only in December 2025, when Minister Ivan discussed the construction of the Austria - Romania Energy Highway. In the absence of a compensation mechanism, Romania continues to suffer the consequences of a fragmented market system, in which energy prices in the East remain significantly higher than in Western states," the document also states.
Comentează