The third and final stage of liberalisation of Lithuania’s retail electricity market will be delayed for at least a year, the country’s Energy Minister Dainius Kreivys said on August 16.
“We will provide a specific figure later when we put the bill before the parliament. But the liberalisation delay period will be more than a year,” he said after a meeting with President Gitanas Nauseda.
The news followed an earlier scandal when Perlo Energija, an electricity provider, unilaterally cancelled contracts for fixed electricity prices signed with thousands of households in Lithuania. This then led to calls to review the liberalisation process.
“We should wait until we have more renewable energy, as its producers will probably start cooperating and supplying electricity directly to people. We will need a couple of years for the market situation to change fundamentally,” the energy minister said.
Vaidas Augustinavicius, the president’s adviser on economic and social policy issues, said the meeting focused on ways to create an efficient electricity market where new suppliers, especially those producing renewable energy, would be able to cooperate and compete with the big players.
Earlier in the day, Kreivys said the third liberalisation phase would be “significantly” postponed, and the period would be more than six months.
Speaking on August 8, Kreivys said he saw no reason to postpone the third liberalization stage but he admitted the next day it might have to be postponed if it would take time to prepare a new scheme for helping elderly people choose an independent supplier.
The presidential office had also maintained its position until August 16 that the third phase should not be postponed.
Opposition parties in the parliament had also proposed postponing the final liberalisation phase for some 400,000 households consuming the smallest amount of electricity – up to 1,000 kWh per year – to choose an independent supplier.
This will mostly affect pensioners and households facing deprivation.
The Lithuanian parliament is currently debating ideas to propose to the government to postpone the third phase of market liberalisation until the end of 2025 and to introduce a price compensation scheme for consumers using up to 150 kWh of electricity per month.
During the third phase, consumers using up to 1,000 kWh of electricity per year have until December 18 to choose an independent supplier. (LRT/Business World Magazine)