This week EWRC, the Bulgarian national energy regulator, announced (click here) four separate REMIT enforcement actions to various market participants including their System Operator. EWRC provides scant detail on each of the cases. Below is a description of each based on their brief announcement.
- In the first case TPP-BOBOV DOL AD BGN, a privately owned thermal power plant, was fined BGN 80,000 (roughly EUR 40,900) for the failure on several occasions to publish inside information in violation of Article 4 of REMIT. The eight instances occurred between January and March 2024 (notably, before the May go live of REMIT 2) where the plant failed to publish Urgent Market Messages (UMMs) in respect of planned unavailability for the 630MW coal-fired facility. Interestingly the announcement explicitly highlights that the UMMs were not published on a “platform licensed by the Agency for the Cooperation of Energy Regulators” – the licencing requirement for Information Platforms (IIPs) is a feature of REMIT 2 which entered into force after these events (and the IIP requirements are dependent on delegated acts which are still a work in progress). The firm was fined BGN 10,000 (roughly EUR 5,100) for each failure.
- In the second case TPP Contour Global Maritsa East 3 AD, an independent power producer owned by KKR, was penalised for failing to publish inside information regarding its planned permanent cessation of production at its lignite plant on 20 February this year after its power purchase contract with the National Electricity Company (NEK) had expired (see here). Contour Global was fined BGN 10,000 (roughly EUR 5,100).
- In the third case AES - 3C MARITSA EAST I Ltd was also penalised for its failure to publish inside information in relation to an unplanned outage occurring on 18 July 2024 at its 600MW lignite-fired generation plant. AES was fined BGN 20,000 (roughly EUR 10,200).
- In the fourth and final case ESO EAD, the Bulgarian electricity System Operator, was penalised for breaching Article 9 of REMIT by failing to indicate that it used the IBEX EAD platform to disclose inside information in respect of Article 4 of REMIT in its entry in ACER’s Centralised European Registry for Energy Market Participant (CEREMP). ESO EAD was fined BGN 7,500 (roughly EUR 3,830).