Metin Yıldıran, Akfen Energy Generation General Manager, expresses his thoughts on liberalization in electricity market, and wholesale market for Strategy Magazine. Our country’s first contact with electricity took place in 1902 when a foreigner fabricated a generator of only 2 kW power, from the shaft of a watermill on Berdan Brook in Tarsus. Turkey has reached the capacity of 69,981.1 MW as of the end of February 2015 in terms of installed electric power capacity, which were only available in 6 provinces in the form of street lighting when the Republic was founded in 1923. Therefore, this is a significant growth and it continues to progress in a painful way from time to time. This short article is intended to provide brief information on steps that have been taken to create a competitive market and issues regarding liberalization and wholesale market, rather than a general assessment of electric power industry. LEGAL INFRASTRUCTURE As a matter of fact, in the electric power industry, where liberalization activities have been initiated to a certain extent by giving privileges, although the liberalization was tried to be allowed legally with the Law no. 3096 of 1984, the milestone in the formation of a competitive market is the Electricity Market Law no. 4628 entered into force in 2001. Between 2001 and 2013 in which the Electricity Market Law no. 6446 entered into force, significant progresses were made regarding liberalization. At this point, all regions in distribution industry and an important part of the public power plants were privatized. Moreover, in order to create a more competitive environment in electric power industry, it is clear that the end consumers will be taking these burdens by 2018-2019 in which purchase guarantees or operating term will end in BuildOperate, Build-Operate-Transfer and Transfer of Operating Rights projects with purchase guarantee. ISSUES REGARDING WHOLESALE MARKET In 2003, our country was introduced the term “Free Consumer” in electricity. Free Consumers are eligible and legal entities that have a certain rate of consumption and the right to select their suppliers. While the free consumer limit was set as 9,000,000 kWh in 2003, this limit has been set as 4000 kWh in 2015 in which it is expected that everyone will have the right to select their supplier freely and that the free consumer limits will be reset. Following the completion of separations of distribution and retail services and thus the official distribution companies by the early months of 2013, a highly competitive environment among Retail Companies, Wholesale Companies and Production Companies was created in the Free Consumer market. Following the adjustment of free consumer limit, which was expected to be reset, as 4,000 kWh/year, this issue has been started to be discussed in every ground and condition by granting the right to select their own suppliers as free consumers to residential customers to a certain extent and to small and medium scaled companies and having the opportunity to make relatively high profit from electricity bills and spreading the liberalization not only on the top but also throughout the country on the subscale. However, many consumers appeared in the market become a party of contracts, terms of which may not be for the benefit of themselves, mostly due to their insufficient information on the application and legal infrastructure, and end up adversely affected. As a matter of fact, problems arisen in the application are not only against the consumers; but also they restrict the trade activities of those who will compete in the market within this competitive environment. Monopolistic distribution companies operating in that specific region are obliged to provide distribution services to electricity retail companies which become another legal entity following the separation in 2013, and to all supplier companies which are rivals to these retail companies and which may supply electricity to free consumers in a way that is not discriminatory and that creates a competitive environment. However, since the distribution companies and the electricity retail companies have an integrated structure in such a way to share the same building and become economically integrated, this provokes competition violations and the occasions which may affect the fair trade in such a way that they reflect their dominant positions in the electricity distribution region to the applications. Although these issues are expressed before relevant administrations, the problems have not yet been solved. Some of the essential problems are rejecting the supplier change requests on the grounds that the free consumer limits are not reached, although free consumer limit is exceeded or free consumer notice is given, ensuring that the consumers engage with them by longterm contracts with stricter provisions even without a termination clause by the official supplier company, official retail companies calling the consumers made a contract with another supplier and trying to dissuade them and to make them sign a contract with their companies, adding the parties to the portfolios of the official retail companies in free consumer status with a low discount rate in one night without informing them, in supplier change requests, not allowing the change on the grounds that the consumer has an “overdue payment” since he/she has a bill expiry date of which has not yet reached, in the last day of the transfer, because the official retail company rejects the transfer without any reason and seeks for the provision of a written objection, the transfer could not be virtually realized and the consumer is fed up, making unconscious customers confused by giving misinformation such as “You shall get no help in case of failure” or “there can be a mistake on the invoice”... According to the latest research made by Accenture across Turkey, 48 percent of the consumers are not satisfied with the energy suppliers and 27 percent of them tend to change their suppliers; 52 percent of the energy consumers tend to change their suppliers for price-related reasons and 78 percent of the consumers encounter problems while using digital channels provided by the suppliers. Therefore, it is clear that necessary measures should be taken against these anticompetitive applications in order not to ruin the consumers’ confidence and belief in the industry and not to worsen the non-competitive relations among official and other supplier companies in the industry. Every company should meet its obligations and take necessary measures to increase the consumer satisfaction in an effort to eliminate the problems which are not directly related to the competition, but result in consumer dissatisfaction.