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The first rains will bring higher electricity bills to households although the Ministry of Environment and Energy excludes another increase, at least for now.

However, such an increase will be necessary because the requirement of the Memorandum to eliminate cross-subsidies has not been met as stated by persons familiar with the matter.

Some steps were taken in January when the latest increases came into force and the completion of the planned changes has been postponed for May and July.

The specific changes, however, were not made as a result of which the problem remains unresolved.

What does elimination of cross-subsidies actually mean? It means an increase in electricity bills of households with lower consumption, as is known there are major differences in the low consumption from 0 to 800 kWh, and in the bills of farmers and a reduction of commercial electricity bills at the same time.

As provided in the Memorandum, there should be a single electricity bill for households. The differentiation depending on the amount of consumption is ungrounded, as it is not a characteristic of an individual consumer profile.

A different type of consumer, for example, has a different behaviour within a single day, for example, when electricity is consumed only at night, etc., which is not typical of households, regardless of how much electricity they consume.

The Troika will raise in September the issue of the formation of a single electricity bill for households, which will result in increased electricity prices for low consumption and farmers.

Decline in consumption

Meanwhile, the consumption of low and medium voltage electric power fell by 19% in July, mainly due to the recession and the relatively normal weather conditions which had precluded the mass use of air conditioners.

In general, reduction in demand reached 13.6% compared with July 2012 as shown by the data of the system operator for the transmission of electricity, which relate only to the connected network (not including the islands).

The fall in consumption within the network reached 19% which is perhaps the largest monthly decline but it is not fully comparable with previous periods, as the statistical coverage of the data has been changed.

Conversely, the consumption of high-voltage electric power by large industrial enterprises in the country marked a 4.8% increase.

In the period January-July 2013, the decline in total demand compared with the same period in 2012 reached 5.3%. The consumption within the network recorded the largest decline of 6.4% which was somewhat offset by a 1.1% increase in the power consumption by large enterprises.

As for the level of production, which fell by 11% in July, there is an impressive reduction in the production of electricity from conventional fuels of up to 19% and an even more impressive increase in the production from renewable sources, reaching 62%.

During the period January-July, the total electricity generation decreased by 5% whereas the production from conventional power sources decreased by 11% and that from renewable energy sources increased by 45%.