Consumers in the European Union become more active participants of the gas market, DiXi Group expert Roman Nitsovych said during the webinar "Launch of the retail gas market: what should consumers expect?", Ukrainian Energy reports.

“The EU’s energy policy is, first of all, about more competitive prices for consumers,” Mr. Nitsovych said.

The majority of Europeans believe that the EU’s task is to overcome energy poverty and ensure better prices by implementing more competitive markets.

At the same time, consumers become active market participants: they can control their demand and produce energy themselves.

There are almost 40 active suppliers on average in the national market. But at the same time, the volume of market is not always the determining factor for the number of suppliers. The majority of suppliers are small market participants, as there are only 3-6 serious players in the market.

The expert also commented on the structure of gas price, in particular, in Ukraine.

“In our country, over 70% is the gas price in the wholesale market. We are more dependent on market fluctuations than other countries, where taxes and other charges have a greater share of price,” Roman Nitsovych said.

EU markets are dominated by contracts with fixed price or a price that changes monthly.

“Today, they encourage contracts with a dynamic price that changes depending on the market situation. But this practice is not commonplace,” the expert added.

The webinar “Launch of the retail gas market: what should consumers expect?” was organized as part of USAID’s Energy Sector Transparency project implemented by DiXi Group.