The customers serviced by the power distribution utilities RED Nord and RED Nord-Vest will pay equal tariffs. A decision to this effect will be likely adopted at the next meeting of the National Energy Regulatory Agency (ANRE) at the end of this week, Info-Prim Neo reports. “In order not to trouble people and generate discontent among the customers of those two electric utilities, we will adopt this decision, but this will be for the last time. Those are two entities which have different expenses, so the tariffs should not be the same. The government ought to decide what to do with them – either denationalize them or consolidate them into one single state-run company”, said ANRE director Victor Parlicov at a public debate addressing the issue of electricity tariffs. In connection with the 11% rise in the price of imported electricity, power distribution companies have asked ANRE for an increase in the tariffs for the residential users. RED Union Fenosa asked for a 9% increment, from 1.33 lei to 1.45 lei per one kWh. RED Nord asked for a 6.1% increase from 1.43 lei to 1.52 lei, and RED Nord-Vest, from 1.43 lei to 1.60 lei. Nicolae Mogoreanu, the head of the Association of Energy Consumers, said that, while the electric utilities' claims are understandable, RED Union Fenosa, for example, should not raise the tariff by more than 6%. Further, Nicolae Mogoreanu said that the existing tariff policies are discouraging for the businesses connected to medium (6-10kV) and high (35-110 kV) voltage lines, which subsidize lower prices for residential consumers, who are connected to low voltage lines of 0.4 kV. This is why it is needed to introduce differential tariffs, thinks Mogoreanu. Victor Parlicov said introducing differential tariffs would be in line with the liberalization of the electricity market, which is planned to occur in 2013 for corporate consumers and in 2015 for residential consumers. As a result, the gap between tariffs would be no larger than 10%, said Parlicov. From April 1, the price of a kilowatt-hour bought by RED Union Fenosa from the Kuchurgan Power Station (which is owned by the Russian company Inter RAO) rose by nearly 11%, from ¢5.5 to ¢6.1. The two publicly owned distribution companies located in northern Moldova – RED Nord and RED Nord Vest are buying Ukrainian electricity at the same price.