National energy company Ukrenergo and the electricity transmission system operator SEPS (Slovakia) on October 2, 2018 agreed on building a new power line as an optimal solution for boosting power transmission between Ukraine and Slovakia, the press service of Ukrenergo has reported. “According to the agreements, a new 400 kV overhead line will be built, which will connect the existing 400 kV substations Mukachevo and Velke Kapusany in the single-circuit version with the possibility of further upgrading it to double-circuit in case of an increase in the volume of interstate flows,” the company said.
According to the press service, the project also envisages reconstruction of the 400 kV open switchgear at the Mukachevo substation. “In the next three or four years, at the Mukachevo 400 kV substation, it is planned to replace the existing 400/220 kV autotransformer (АТ-3) 400/220 kV (installed in 1964), as well as equipping the 400 kV complete switchgear with gas insulation,” Ukrenergo said.
Considering the condition of the existing 400 kV overhead line Mukachevo-Velke Kapusany, which has been operating since 1963, its modernization was recognized as inexpedient. The line will work until the launch of the new line.
The company recalled that this project is a candidate for projects of mutual interest (PMI), the list of which will be approved by the Council of Ministers of the Energy Community in the autumn of 2018.
BUILDING, ENERGY COMPANY, POWER LINE, POWER TRANSMISSION, SLOVAKIA'S, UKRENERGO
The Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine at a meeting on Wednesday approved the supervisory board of national energy company Ukrenergo, consisting of four independent members and three representatives of the state. Former head of the EBRD representative office in Ukraine Sevki Acuner, ex-president and CEO of Energinet (Denmark) Peder Andreasen, General representative of the National Academy of Technologies of France, having experience of working in EDF, Elf Aquitaine, Total and the French Energy Council Olivier Appert, co-founder and CEO at DFC Economics (Italy), who earlier worked in TERNA Rete Elettrica Nazionale and Enel, Luigi De Francisci joined the board.
Deputy State Secretary of the Cabinet of Ministers Serhiy Kushnir, State Secretary of the Ministry of Energy and Coal Industry Maksym Nemchynov and Advisor to Deputy Prime Minister Oleksandr Poplavsky will represent the state on the board.
“The reform of the management of state-owned enterprises is progressing. Today, another large and important enterprise for the country’s economy, the state-owned enterprise Ukrenergo, received a supervisory board, which includes experts with successful experience in international markets,” Minister of the Cabinet of Ministers Oleksandr Saenko wrote on his Facebook page.
“All of them have proven successful experience in implementing commercial projects in the energy sector, experience in transformation processes, led by national power grid operators such as Électricité de France, Enel, TERNA Rete Elettrica Nazionale and Energinet. Among them are qualified financiers and power engineers with experience of operational and strategic management of energy companies that have worked in the industry for decades,” he said.
National Energy Company Ukrenergo and state-owned enterprise (SOE) Energomarket in December 2018 will launch software required for the operation of the retail segment of the new power market, Deputy Prime Minister of Ukraine Volodymyr Kistion has said. He said that the terms are outlined in the plan of the implementation of the law on the electricity market verified by the heads of the Energy and Coal Industry Ministry, the National Commission for the State Regulation of Energy, Housing and Utilities Services (NCER) and the parliamentary committee for fuel and energy complex.
“The first stage of the reform related to the retail market segment will start already in December 2018. Two months later, Ukrenergo and Energomarket will launch the required software, and NCER will approve the last part of the acts needed to effectively launch a new market,” Kistion wrote on his Facebook page.
The deputy prime minister added that the Energy and Coal Industry Ministry, in turn, is obliged to forward the bills on the rules of ensuring the supply of electricity to protected consumers and the rules of holding a tender for the construction of generating capacities, the introduction of energy efficient measures to the government in the shortest possible time.
National Energy Company Ukrenergo is heading to the final stage of corporatization and the end of this process is expected approximately in the middle of November, Ukrenergo CEO Vsevolod Kovalchuk has said.
“The process was delayed because the reorganization commission had no evaluation. Now it is completed, a positive review from the State Property Fund has been received,” he told Interfax-Ukraine on the sidelines of the YES Conference organized by the Victor Pinchuk Foundation in Kyiv.
Kovalchuk said that the commission should approve the audit of the balance to be transferred, for which the necessary materials were sent to the ministries. According to him, the next week or in two weeks the answers will be received, after which the process will reach the formal final stage: the charter will be approved and registered. The draft charter has long been developed. After that, Ukrenergo will be transferred to the State Property Fund with the subsequent return to the ownership of the Energy and Coal Industry Ministry.
“This process will be completed in full before the middle of November,” the head of the company said.
He added that synchronously to the process the supervisory board is being approved. “The selection (of four independent members of the supervisory board] was completed two and a half or three months ago, but there is no decision on the appointment yet. I hope that this issue will be resolved in a week or two, and this will open the way for further transformation of the company, and the corporate governance reform will be completed,” Kovalchuk said.
He found it difficult to name the size of the charter capital of Ukrenergo following the results of corporatization, since it is necessary to approve the audit of the balance of payments to take into account the remarks, if any, on including or excluding certain assets or ownership rights into or from the charter capital.
Ukrenergo plans at the end of 2018 to sign an operational agreement on simultaneous operation in the Ukraine-Moldova control block with Moldelectrica, the press service of the Ukrainian company has reported. “The operational agreement is a contractual basis for the parallel operation of the transmission system operators, which is being worked out in the framework of the action plan for the synchronization of the energy systems of Ukraine and Moldova with ENTSO-E … The final signing of the operation agreement is scheduled for the end of 2018,” the report says.
On September 14 Ukrenergo and Moldelectrica signed three new provisions from the future agreement, and in general 17 provisions are already ready.
“The operating agreement significantly simplifies our contractual base and brings it into full compliance with the European standards. After its final signing, we will be able to cooperate with Moldelectrica according to ENTSO-E rules. To date, the major part of the plan of measures for the development of this important document has already been completed,” Yuriy Kudrenko, the head of the department for ensuring the parallel operation of Ukrenergo’s power systems, said.
Ukrenergo is preparing a new joint project with the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) “Modernization of Transmission Networks” with an approximate cost of EUR 149 million, the company’s press service has reported. “The goal of the project is the replacement of power equipment, the reconstruction of substations with the introduction of an automated control system for technological processes,” Ukrenergo said. As part of the preparation of the project, representatives of consultancy companies selected by the EBRD, namely Tetra Tech (the United States) and AF-Mercados EMI (Spain) visited ten substations of Ukrenergo (750 kV Zakhidnoukrainska, 400 kV Mukachevo, 330 kV Novovolynsk, 330 kV Hrabiv, 750 kV Donbaska, 330 kV Myrhorod, 330 kV Kupiansk, 330 kV Mykolaivska, 330 kV Trykhaty, and 330 kV Lisova).
The consultants should prepare feasibility studies for the reconstruction of the listed substations, and the project is planned to be implemented at the expense of EBRD loan funds until 2021.
Modernization of the substations will increase the efficiency and reliability of electricity transmission, will allow to manage the equipment of the substations from the regional centers. Also, its implementation will be the basis for the introduction of a smart grid technology in the framework of the “Second Electricity Transmission Project” implemented by Ukrenergo jointly with the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD).
