The National Energy and Utilities Regulatory Commission (NEURC) has extended the ban on the import of electricity from the countries that are not members of the Energy Community, that is, from the Russian Federation and Belarus, for another month – until November 1 of this year. The regulator made the corresponding decision on September 29.
During the meeting, member of the commission Dmytro Kovalenko noted that this issue was considered at a meeting of the Anti-Crisis Energy Headquarters on Monday, September 27. It was supported by market participants, the Ministry of Energy, and government representatives, as well as Ukrenergo.
“At its headquarters, Ukrenergo noted that the situation is under control and the ban on electricity imports for a month will not cause problems with operational safety in the integrated power system of the country. There is already a protocol of the Anti-Crisis Headquarters to do this,” Kovalenko explained.
According to him, the decision to further extend the ban will be made on the basis of the operational situation, in particular with the accumulation of coal in Ukraine.
At the same time, following a proposal from Ukrenergo, the regulator, after the meeting, approved a resolution with wording allowing the transmission system operator in October to hold auctions to allocate capacity for imports from Russia and Belarus for November, in case the ban for this month is no longer imposed.
There is no text of the resolution on the NEURC website yet.
As reported, the NEURC established a ban on the import of electricity from the Russian Federation and Belarus by decree No. 853 dated May 26, its validity period expires on October 1. The powers of the regulator to limit the available bandwidth distributed at daily and monthly auctions in 2021 is enshrined in law of Ukraine No. 1396-IX regarding the certification of Ukrenergo.
The National Energy and Utilities Regulatory Commission of Ukraine (NEURC) at a meeting on Wednesday limited the available capacity for importing electricity to Ukraine from states that are not parties to the Energy Community (Russia, Belarus) to 0 MW until October 1, 2021. “We take this decision on the initiative of Energy Minister Herman Haluschenko, who made such a request to us. At the same time, we remember our experience and this winter, and remember the balance of interests, because we also think about consumers and about that, theoretically, the termination of imports as a market mechanism can lead to abuses and manipulations in the market,” Chairman of NEURC Valeriy Tarasiuk said.
He did not rule out that NEURC will most likely continue limiting the throughput of power lines between Ukraine and Russia and Belarus after October 1.
The regulator decided to cancel the results of annual auctions at which the capacity for 2021 was allocated in terms of interstate relations between Ukraine and states that are not parties to the Energy Community (Russia and Belarus). The regulator also instructed the transmission system operator to reimburse the auction winners for the funds paid for the capacities allocated at the annual auctions.
