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Small consumers, farmers, owners of villas and large factories will pay their bills at the new prices of the state power company. Unemployed households living on the poverty threshold will benefit specified discounts.

The new increases equal to 13.7% will come into force in January 2011 and will affect more than 3 million consumers. Those who will ‘loose’ the most are the farmers as their bills will rise by 7%. As for the households that have been saving electricity so far, they will pay for it in the future, because the highest rate - increased by 13.5 %, will burden those who were consuming between 0 and 800 kWt/h.  

Accordingly, the bills of the biggest consumers of electricity – over 3001 kWt/h – will be reduced by about 13.8%. Pools, villas, etc. will pay lower bills from the next year in compliance with the decision of the Ministry of Environment. The Ministry will make deductions from -4.3 to -18.4 for the bills of companies and factories with low and average consumption, while factories with high consumption of electricity will pay 8.7% higher price. The Minister of Environment Tina Birbili said that about 1.2 million consumers – households that live on the poverty line will pay bills reduced by 20%.  

To avoid a wave of discontent related with the electricity price increase, the Ministry said that:

- The end bill for electricity for about 1 million small companies will be reduced by about 5-18%

- Overhead bills for the blocks will decrease by about 7%.

- The bills of closed-type houses or villas, or of houses owned by rich people who live alone, etc., will increase by about € 30 per year or about € 2.5 a month

- The increase for a family will be equal to about € 1-2 a month

- The bills of about 500,000 families will be reduced

- Despite increases in bills for agricultural use, they remain low though

- The social price list protects unemployed, people with three children, people with special needs

- Nevertheless, consumers should know that the situation with the new electricity prices for the 2012-2013 period is still pending

- The bills the consumers will pay from January 1, 2011 will be higher because of the payments for the national radio and television and the municipal taxes

This new calculation of electricity rates combines the advices of the Troika and the European Commission the price to reflect the real cost of production. The proposal of the Energy Office is to discuss tariffs every six months.