In a few days, Ukraine will start exporting electricity to the synchronous zone of Continental Europe, Volodymyr Kudrytsky, Board Chairman of NPC Ukrenergo, has said on his Facebook page on Tuesday.
“ENTSO-E confirmed on June 27 that Ukrenergo, together with TSOs [Transmission System Operators] of neighboring countries, has successfully met six technical conditions for opening the first 100 MW of electricity exports from Ukraine to Europe. Ukraine can also import this amount of European electricity if necessary,” Kudrytsky wrote.
According to him, today Ukrenergo will hold an open auction for access to the interstate section, at which all electricity producers and other participants will be able to participate.
“This decision finally breaks the ‘aquarium’ of the closed Ukrainian energy market and at the same time brings us closer to full integration into the European energy space,” the head of Ukrenergo stressed.
He noted that in terms of the timing of the opening of exports from the power system newly attached to ENTSO-E, this is an unprecedentedly quick decision. Under the 2017 synchronization agreement, commercial exports from the Ukrainian power grid were to open only one year after the trial synchronization. Ukraine has reached an agreement to open commercial electricity exchanges in three months.
Kudrytsky also saw a certain symbolic coincidence in the date of the ENTSO-E decision on Ukrainian exports.
“Exactly five years ago, Ukrenergo signed the historic agreement with ENTSO-E, thanks to which the Ukrainian energy system is now synchronized with the European one. This agreement set the conditions for future integration with the continental European energy grid, which was to take place in 2023. We achieved the result a year and a half earlier,” the head of Ukrenergo summed up.
Andriy Gerus, Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Energy, Housing and Utility Services, said at a press conference on Tuesday that Ukraine would start exporting electricity to the synchronous zone of Continental Europe from July 1.
At the same time, Minister of Energy Herman Haluschenko specified that the export of electricity would start on June 30.
The same information was posted on its website by ENTSO-E.
“The start of commercial electricity exchange with the Ukraine/Moldova power system is scheduled for June 30 at the Ukraine-Romania connection. It is expected that electricity trading on other connections [Ukraine-Slovakia, Ukraine-Hungary and Moldova-Romania] will start later,” the network said in a release on Tuesday.
According to him, the total trading capacity at the first stage will be set at 100 MW. After this initial phase, a gradual increase in trading capacity will be regularly assessed based on grid stability and security considerations, ENTSO-E explained.
