Energy, Politics and the Citizen’s Pocket: What Is to Be Done?
Automatically translated summary. The full text is available in Romanian.
In Europe, consumers can choose who supplies their electricity or natural gas, much as they choose a phone, shoes or a car. The article contrasts this with Moldova, where one gas supplier and a handful of electricity sources leave consumers at the mercy of monopolists.
In Europe, the network operator must guarantee access to energy whoever the consumer buys from. Because suppliers compete with one another, they cannot blackmail consumers by raising prices or cutting off gas or electricity.
Moldova has a single gas supplier, Gazprom, which brings gas from Russia. Electricity comes from only two or three sources: the Chișinău combined heat and power plants (about one fifth), the Cuciurgan power plant or, possibly, Ukraine. End customers can do little but accept the price set by the monopolists. Gazprom could cut supplies for political reasons, or if it no longer wished to ship gas through Ukraine, since Moldova is too small a market to matter to it. If the suppliers reselling Cuciurgan electricity stop doing so, or the gas is shut off, Moldova faces an energy blackout.
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