Explaining the Behavior of Romanian Household Electricity Consumers on a Changing Market

The overall trend of developing a liberalized energy sector in the EU member states means that countries such as Romania needed to implement significant reforms in order to open up the industry to private investors and allow customers the freedom to choose their supplier. Documenting these changes is necessary in order to understand the current market context and its implications for electricity end users. Our aim is to assess the evolution of the Romanian energy sector over the last 15 years and to evaluate and explain the behavior of household customers in the context of the liberalized electricity markets. The approach used in constructing the study was desk research. In order to meet the research objectives, we generate several hypotheses to explain the low incidence of electricity supplier switching observed among Romanian consumers. We will seek to test these hypotheses as part of future research on the topic.