Bozinovska: There will be many benefits from the new Energy Law

The new Energy Law, which has passed the first reading in Parliament, is a document that will shape the energy sector of Macedonia in the next decades, Energy, Mining and Mining Sanja Bozinovska said today.

-We have not received remarks on the new energy law, but there will be many benefits from the law that was supposed to be passed in the late 2023. We worked hard and made this law that has 317 members. It will form energy communities through which citizens will be able to put solar panels and take care of their electricity accounts – Bozinovska said after today’s meeting with journalists at the Ministry of Energy, Mining and Mineral Raw materials.

He emphasized that this legal solution will first introduce a methodology to determine the real number of energy poverty in the country. At the same time, as he said, the new legal solution MEPSO will transfer to the ownership of the Ministry of Energy, Mining and Mineral Raw materials and for the first time the existence of electricity storage batteries produced from renewable energy sources will be formalized. There will also be an provision for e-mobility, ie to charge electric cars at a reasonable price.

-We have already started working on the methodology for determining energy poverty together with the Ministry of Social Policy and we will be able to know the exact figure. Unofficially there are about 50,000 meters in the country that are considered energy poverty, but we want to have an accurate figure. A working group has been established and we systematically work on detecting all those affected by energy poverty and we are coming to an end. There will be several models that we have not yet finalized, but the state will certainly help them – said Bozinovska.

In response to a question said that according to unofficial sources, much of the energy poverty enters the fourth block for electricity consumption, especially in Bitola.

« We will check all this and we will have accurate and precise figures, » Bozinovska said.

With the legislative changes, he added, within seven years, EVN will have to change existing smart meters to prevent the delayed reading of the accounts for which the government will make after the adoption of the law.

-The government will do everything in the interest of the citizens. We have not yet discussed what it will be, but we will do everything for the citizens to have no costs – Bozinovska explained.

He emphasized that they inherited a very bad situation in energy and added that in 2017 the production price of AD ESM was 37 euros per megawatt hour of electricity, and last June was 135 euros.

-This is an enormous increase. AD ESM’s management is working to reduce the production price. Nothing can do overnight because it is not something that there is a short -term solution. We have an improvement in hydrology with SEO and smart operation of ESM services and is now over 34 percent. Remonstrids will also follow, as they were not completed on time. It is a very short period of time to see some results, but by the end of the year I expect that ESM consolidation will be done. I hope that the state will do everything for the citizens to have no price shocks in the next tender, which will be at the beginning of the second half of this year – emphasized Bozinovska.