President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky has set a task to Energy and Environment Protection Minister Oleksiy Orzhel to reduce coal and electricity imports.
“What kind of import can we talk about when the countries from which we import do not allow us to enter their markets?” the president said at the meeting of the workers of coal industry in Kyiv on Tuesday.
He said that import is possible exclusively regarding definite brands of coal, which are not extracted inside the country.
“Therefore, our coal, our miners, our electricity comes first,” Zelensky said, adding that there is no place for coal imports in the Ukrainian coal industry.
Ukraine in January 2020 imported 560.66 million kWh of electricity, which makes up 3.7% of the total electricity volume supplied to the country’s energy system, the press service of Ukrenergo has said. Thus, major imports of 449.73 million kWh (80.2%) were supplied to the Burshtyn Energy Island. In particular, 329.11 million kWh (73.18% of the total imports into this trade zone) was imported from Slovakia, which is 2.1 times more than the average monthly indicator in this direction in 2019. Imports from Hungary amounted to 97 million kWh (21.57%), Romania some 23.62 million kWh (5.25%).
“The growth in electricity imports from Slovakia is due to an increase from 400 MW to 600 MW of the capacity of interstate sections between Ukraine and Slovakia from the end of November 2019,” the report says.
In turn, imports to the country’s united energy system amounted to 110.9 million kWh (19.8% of the total imports), of which 93 million kWh (83.86%) were from Belarus, 17.9 million kWh (16.14%) from Russia.
Commenting on measures to ensure the operational safety of the energy system, Ukrenergo noted that in January imports to the united energy system were limited to 475.8 million kWh. The volume of restrictions from the Russian Federation amounted to 374.6 million kWh, from Belarus, respectively, 101.2 million kWh.
A biogas plant for processing plant waste and generating electricity is to be built in Kyiv, Kostiantyn Yalovy, the head of the standing commission on environmental policy at Kyiv City Council, has said.
“I haven’t written about a biogas plant in the capital for a long time. This is equipment that will be able to process plant waste in an environmentally friendly way, resulting in biogas and organic fertilizers,” he wrote on Facebook.
According to Yalovy, the corresponding draft order is being approved by Kyiv City State Administration.
According to the project, the customer of the construction will be municipal enterprise Kyivzelenbud, the design and estimate work will cost UAH 3 million.
“Biogas received will be generated in electricity and launched into the network at a feed-in tariff,” the official said.
Ukraine boosted its electricity exports by 4.9% in 2019, to 6.469 billion kWh, the Ministry of Energy and Environment Protection has told. Electricity supplies from the Burshtyn TPP energy island to Hungary, Slovakia, and Romania rose by 17.1%, to 4.448 billion kWh.
Exports to Poland fell 2.4%, to 1.377 billion kWh.
Exports to Moldova fell 32.6%, to 644 million kWh.
In July, Ukraine resumed commercial imports of electricity. The year’s total was 2.699 billion kWh, including 909.8 million kWh from Slovakia, 851.3 million kWh from Belarus, 630.1 million kWh from Hungary, 286.3 million kWh from Russia, and 21.1 million kWh from Romania.
Due to crossflows related to the parallel work of the united energy system in Ukraine and systems in bordering countries (accounted for under contracts signed by Energomarket), Ukraine imported 41.6 million kWh of energy from Russia and 1 million kWh from Belarus in 2019.
BUYERS, ELECTRICITY, HUNGARY, MOLDOVA, POLAND, ROMANIA, SLOVAKIA
Electricity consumption in Ukraine in January-November 2019, taking into account in-process losses in power grids, decreased by 1.2% (by 1.648 billion kWh) compared to the same period in 2018, to 136.220 billion kWh, the Ministry of Energy and Environment Protection has reported.
Excluding in-process losses, electricity consumption for the 11 months decreased by 0.5% (by 586.3 million kWh), to 109.736 billion kWh.
The country’s industry, excluding in-process losses, reduced electricity consumption by 0.6%, to 47.112 billion kWh. In particular, metallurgy consumed 26.623 billion kWh (1.4% less compared to January-November 2018), fuel industry some 3.111 billion kWh (3.5% less), machine building sector some 3.354 billion kWh (8.6% down), chemical and petrochemical some 3.395 billion kWh (19.6% more), food and processing some 4.142 billion kWh (0.6% more), construction materials some 2.073 billion kWh (0.1% more), and others some 4.414 billion kWh (1% down).
In addition, agricultural enterprises consumed 3.430 billion kWh (2.6% less), transport some 5.965 billion kWh (5% less), and construction some 873.5 million kWh (2.5% down).
The population of the country in January-November 2019 consumed 31.981 billion kWh (0.9% less), household consumers some 13.694 billion kWh (1.4% less), and other non-industrial consumers some 6.680 billion kWh (9.4% more).
In the 11 months of 2019, the share of industry in total electricity consumption remained unchanged at 42.9%, and the share of the population decreased from 29.3% to 29.1%.
The Ascania multi-profile Ukrainian holding has entered the electricity and natural gas markets by creating Ascania Energy to supply electricity and natural gas to commercial consumers, the founder and shareholder of the holding, Valeriy Gorban, has said.
“We were prompted to open this business line by the fear of a significant increase in electricity tariffs after the launch of the new market model. When the market opened, we predicted an increase in the cost of electricity for enterprises by 20-25%. In fact, after July 1, the price soared by 40-50%. Our group consumes a large amount of electricity. These are tremendous costs. But understanding the market makes it possible to partially compensate for these losses,” he told Interfax-Ukraine.
According to Gorban, today, the company provides customers with about 17 million kWh of electricity monthly, and began to prepare for entering a new segment for itself early 2018.
“In recent years, we have observed the process of gradual liberalization of the energy market of Ukraine. The creation of a fairly free natural gas market in 2016-2017 allowed us to diversify the supply of this resource, gain expertise in this segment and start supplying gas,” the founder of the holding said.
Ascania Energy is part of the Ascania Group, which unites 12 companies. Among the areas of activity are import, production and distribution of food products, honey processing and export – Ascania-Pak, rose growing – Ascania-Flora, soft drinks production – Kvass Beverages, logistics services, electricity supply, small arms production weapons, security services and training of security personnel of private and state structures.
The group has branches throughout Ukraine and offices in Berlin (Germany) and Guangzhou (China).
