The electric power and heat tariffs will be increased before the heating season, National Agency for Energy Regulation director Sergiu Ciobanu said in the opening of public debates staged by the Agency on September 13 following a request from the Chisinau heat and power producer SA “Termoelectrica” to raise the power generation tariff by 12.3%, to 179.51 bani/kWh, and the tariff for heat supplied to end-users by 27.4 %, to 1,257.38 lei/Gcal.

In the debates, “Termoelectrica” director general Veaceslav Eni provided a series of arguments in favor of increasing the tariffs. He noted that the fuel and power prices increased, while the oscillating exchange rates influence prices. According to him, the historical debt of “Termoelectrica” to the gas supplier “Moldovagaz” totals US$2.5 billion and its repayment has been rescheduled over 15 years with the assistance of the World Bank. The WB imposed the condition of not accumulating new debts for signing a new agreement so that insignificant investments have been made during the last two years. The Bank also asked to approve real tariffs for the provided services.

Answering the posed questions, Veaceslav Eni said the request to increase the tariffs was made a year ago, but recently they specified the costs included in the tariffs.

The National Agency for Energy Regulation will issue a press release on the debates held today on September 16.