“Ignitis” offered users a voluntary subscription fee, “Elektrum” is also preparing for it Business

As announced by Ignitis, customers will be able to choose the company’s new independent supply plans freely, just like other Ignitis independent electricity supply plans.

New suppliers can decide for themselves whether they want to pay a monthly fee or not when choosing a plan.

The plans previously offered by the supplier remain valid, but the options for both new and existing customers of the company are expanding.

“Ignitis” photo/Dalia Bražiūnaitė

According to Dalia Bražiūnaitė, the head of Ignitis’s private customer department, the new plans include a monthly fee, which is neither mandatory nor additional, but allows to reduce the price of a kilowatt hour and save money for customers.

In addition, according to the company’s representative, the plan will be useful for those whose consumption fluctuates: they use less electricity in the warm season and much more in the cold season. Plans with a monthly fee will help you balance your electricity costs throughout the year.

By choosing the Ignitis independent electricity supply plan “Minimalus”, fixing the price for 7, 12 or 24 months. and when choosing a monthly fee, it will reach 1.05 euros, choosing the “Optimalus” plan, fixing the price for 7, 12 or 24 months. and when choosing a monthly fee, it will be 1.90 euros.

If you choose the Išmanus plan linked to the exchange and the monthly fee, it will be 1.36 euros. Accordingly, the price of electricity per kilowatt hour is 0.5 ct/kWh, 0.9 ct/kWh and 0.7 ct/kWh.

“It is important to note that our offers are not binding and the fee is not added additionally. Customers can freely choose plans without a monthly fee, and plans with a monthly fee are another alternative that increases the options,” commented the representative of Ignitis.

Among the company’s independent supply household customers, the largest share, regarding 80 percent, have chosen fixed-price plans, while the remaining, regarding 20 percent, have chosen exchange-linked plans that change with the rhythm of the exchange.

According to the data of the State Energy Regulatory Council (VERT), more than 73 percent have chosen “Ignitis” as an independent electricity supplier. household electricity consumers.

Enefit introduced the fee in 2023. in September, and Elektrum will deliver soon

As we already announced in the winter, Enefit became the first of the three independent electricity supply companies to introduce a subscription fee.

From March 1 The subscription fee of 2 euros was introduced for some existing customers who chose the exchange-linked plan. The company said regarding 18,000 people were affected. its customers.

The company argued that such a move was due to the desire to unify the applied pricing.

Irmantos Gelūnos/BNS photo/”Enefit”

“We started applying the subscription fee from October of last year, both for contracts linked to the exchange and for fixed ones, and from March, a fee of 2 euros will also be applied to all customers who have signed variable price contracts,” Enefit told LRT at the time ” manager Vytenis Koryzna.

However, in general, for new customers with both fixed and flexible plan contracts, the 2-euro subscription fee began to be applied even earlier, from 2023. September

Elektrum, the third independent electricity supplier operating in the country, does not currently apply such or similar taxes, but the product development manager of Elektrum Lietuva, Mantas Kavaliauskas, indicates that the company is “monitoring the business environment” and is preparing for it.

Elektrum Lietuva photo/Mantas Kavaliauskas

“The subscription fee is quite a popular method of taxation – both in other countries for the supply of electricity and in other sectors, for example, we have all been paying such a fee for the drinking water supply service for a long time. We do not charge a subscription fee yet, but we are monitoring the business environment, customer needs and are considering offering at least one electricity plan with such a fee in the near future.

This would be a fixed amount of one or several euros per month, but we might apply a lower price per kilowatt hour to such a plan accordingly. So the client might evaluate himself and decide whether such an offer is suitable for him or not. For a household that consumes more electricity, this would be a financially more attractive solution,” says M. Kavaliauskas.

Expert: This is how companies direct consumers to market rates

Martynas Nagevičius, president of the Lithuanian Renewable Energy Confederation, predicted back in February that following Enefit’s move, the subscription fee would soon be introduced by other suppliers as well.

According to him, introducing subscription fees for exchange-linked plans would be a logical step for companies, as this way the money might be taken and from producing consumers who do not buy electricity from the supplier, but use it only withdrawing stored electricity. Although the generating user tax is paid to the supplier, it is later transferred to the ESO.

Talking to 15min an energy expert said that with such fees, suppliers are trying to find a way to take at least part of the money from the generating consumer segment.

Vidmantas Balkūnos / 15min photo/Martynas Nagevičius

“This is one of those ways of trying to get rid of producing consumers so that they go to their competitor and carry that loss there. This is not a very healthy environment in this place and this issue will have to be resolved, most likely following the elections”, predicted M.Nagevičius.

He believes that the desire to introduce a fee for customers of fixed plans also means that fixing the price is not worthwhile for providers.

Customers can cancel fixed contracts without any obligations, they do not have to pay any kind of delay. This creates a situation where the price risk lies with the suppliers.

“They are trying to create an incentive scheme so that most consumers go to the market-linked price.” After the amendment of the Consumer Rights Protection Law adopted by the Seimas, the consumer can terminate the fixed contract. Termination risk is there on one side and not on the other. Risk, on the other hand, is included in the price or an attempt is made to make transactions on the market as low as possible,” the interviewer said.

M.Nagevičius would consider a situation where the majority of Lithuanian consumers would switch to market-linked plans as posing a risk.

“This is a somewhat dangerous trend if there is another energy crisis and electricity prices rise. in 2022 we had many fixed electricity contracts and a large part of consumers did not feel the crisis at all, because they “jumped” through the crisis with that fixed contract. If there are few such fixed contracts, then the impact of the crisis on electricity consumers would be more severe”, the interviewer points out.