CEZ Bulgaria have received a total of about 7000 complaints from clients, mostly  involving customer dissatisfaction with high subtotalled  bills for the first two months (May and June) of the quarter. August 7 is the last day for entering the data from electrometers for May, June and July in the database of CEZ Bulgaria power utility, the local subsidiary of the Czech company CEZ. This marks the end of the first three-month period since the firm adopted the quarterly billing system.

“In none of the cases (regarding clients’complaints) have any mistakes by the company in calculating the intermediate bills been proven,” CEZ Bulgaria spokesperson Yassen Guev told The Sofia Echo on August 7. Clients should receive their final invoices within at least three to four weeks, Guev said.

Clients can also change the intermediate bills for the first two months - composed of equal bills. These are calculated by using a formula that contains the data from electricity bills for the previous quarter and the electricity bills for the same quarter of the previous year. But clients have to request different amounts for the intermediate bills before paying their final invoice, or within a month after receiving it. They can do so by telephone, by internet or by visiting their nearest CEZ Bulgaria office.

So far households have received, on average, intermediate bills amounting to 20 to 40 leva, Guev said. The use of air conditioning, freezers and boilers could, however, increase these amounts.

The company said in a statement that its consumers, about two million people from western Bulgaria and Sofia, could change the base amount they pay during the first two months of the current period only if they increase or decrease their monthly consumption, or are new or re-registered consumers. “The client has to have a reason to decrease the monthly base payment as, otherwise, he or she will have to pay a larger amount with the third month’s final invoice, which we want to avoid,” Guev said.

CEZ Bulgaria adopted the quarterly billing system as part of the European Union Directive 32 from 2006, which says that only KWh that have been consumed in practice can figure in the bill, regardless of whether it's an intermediate or final invoice. Despite this stipulation, the State Energy and Water Regulation Commission allowed CEZ plans to implement the calculation formula, the chairperson of the Federation of Consumers in Bulgaria Pavel Kurlev told an interview with private broadcaster bTV on August 7.

Questioned whether the increased electricity price for the household consumers by about 14 per cent as of July 1 affected in any way the company, Guev told The Sofia Echo there was no significant effect. He said the invoices that the consumers will receive contain an additional row showing the different electricity price before and after July 1 2008.

As previously reported by The Sofia Echo, all three electricity providers in Bulgaria, CEZ Bulgaria, E.ON Bulgaria and EVN Bulgaria, filed claims against the distribution of the revenues from the increased electricity price, which is not equally divided between the firms and the National Electricity Company. Guev said such cases take years and the company believed by September 2008 the court would define a date for the court case. “We hope that by the end of 2008 a beginning of the court case at first instance will be given,” he said.