Retail prices of natural gas in Slovenia will be capped for a year from 1 September for households, small businesses and consumers such as hospitals and care homes, as the country is to prepare an action plan to wean itself off Russian gas in three years.
The government adopted a regulation capping gas prices for what it calls protected consumers on 21 July, a week after capping electricity prices in a similar way and after intervening to regulate prices of regular petrol and diesel sold outside the motorway network.
The government also extended reduction of excise duties for energy products and reduced VAT on natural gas and electricity from 22% to 9.5%.
Gas prices for households are being capped at €0.07300 per kW7/h, excluding VAT. For businesses whose annual consumption does not exceed 100,000 kW/h and for consumers such as hospitals, care homes, student dorms and prisons the cap will be €0.07900 per kW/h, exclusive of VAT.
Gas supply for those types of consumers is secured in the part of the regulation that says providers cannot suspend gas supply to those customers or turn away new customers from those groups, which also keep the right to replace their provider. That part of the regulation is in force from 22 July.
Households to save up to €700 a yearInfrastructure Minister Bojan Kumer said the cap would allow households to reduce their gas bills by between €90 and €700 a year, depending on how expensive their provider. For the poor, energy vouchers are to be introduced as well.
Consumers such as hospitals are to see their gas bills cut by up to €1,390 a year or 11% if they buy from cheap providers, €8,710 or 44% if they buy from moderately-priced providers and almost €14,000 or 55% if they buy from the most pricey providers, according to Kumer.
Small businesses buying from cheap suppliers are to save €205 to €313 a year or 10%, while those paying more will save €350 to €1,420 or between 11% and 34%.
The measure is to be codified in emergency legislation which Prime Minister Robert Golob announced would be presented to leaders of all parties at the end of August.
Following the first cross-party meeting on the issue on 20 July, Golob said he expected the legislation to be fast tracked in parliament, considering "there were no disagreements".
Janez Janša, the former prime minister, said neither of the two opposition parties "never did nor will oppose measures which will actually help people, businesses and farmers". However, he added that it was yet to be seen if concrete government measures actually did that.
Measures for large companies to follow
The government has also promised measures for big businesses, which the infrastructure minister said would be drawn by the first half of September. These measures would be even more targetted than the ones presented so far, written case by case, as it were.
"We will continue adopting measures so that all needed mechanisms are in place in September to allow households and companies to be worried less in autumn and winter," said Minister Kumer.
Golob said the government wanted to make sure make sure "the economy does not grind to a halt". The idea is to get through winter without rationing even if the supply of Russian gas is cut off.
Plan to wean Slovenia off Russian gas
Plinovodi, Slovenia's main gas supplier, has been tasked by the government to work out an action plan together with gas import companies and the Infrastructure Ministry setting out different scenarios to phase out the use of Russian natural gas by 2025.
Plinovodi and the Energy Agency have also been urged to draw up an analysis of potential voluntary reduction of the offtake from the gas network.
This comes after European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen advised member state to reduce gas consumption by 15%.
The Energy Chamber commented that a suspension of Russian gas supply would likely cause bigger problems in Slovenia than in Western European countries, with the business sector bearing the brunt. Last year, households used only 13% of imported gas, it noted.
Energy Agency data shows Slovenia's consumption of natural gas increased by 6% to 10,163 GWh last year in the highest total consumption since 2010.