Ukraine’s Cabinet of Ministers adopted a resolution developed by the Ministry of Energy on the approval of the Regulation on the peculiarities of the import of electric energy during the autumn-winter period of 2022/2023 under the conditions of the legal regime of martial law in Ukraine.
The resolution offers additional guarantees for electricity market participants who import electricity from the EU.
As stated in a press release by Ukraine’s Ministry of Energy, the import of electricity is “one of the tools” for reducing the deficit of generating capacities in the energy system of Ukraine, as a result of the systematic Russian shelling of energy facilities.
To date, the agreed commercial flows between the EU and Ukraine (together with Moldova) amount to 0.7 gigawatts (GW) at night and 0.6 GW during the day. These volumes are not enough to fully cover the capacity deficit in the evening peak hours, but the involvement of imports will significantly reduce the volume of the imbalance.
At the same time, prices on the “day-ahead” market in EU countries are significantly higher than the price in Ukraine. In order to attract the import of electricity, it is “necessary” to create additional incentives, in particular, to guarantee uninterrupted electricity supply to industrial enterprises in case of concluding relevant contracts, according to the Ministry’s press release. In response to this issue, the resolution provides additional guarantees of protection against planned restrictions of electricity supply to those non-domestic consumers whose facilities will consume electricity imported in accordance with the relevant contracts, until 30 April 2022.
“In order to avoid manipulation, hourly shutdown schedules will not be applied if the consumer imports volumes no less than their own consumption in September 2022 – before the application of forced restrictions on electricity supply,” read the press release.
Moreover, additional guarantees for electricity importers from the EU will enable the system to redistribute the freed capacities of Ukrainian generation, reducing the total number of disconnected subscribers.