Ukrenergo on February 4 will disclose tender proposals submitted for the tender to purchase hardware for the balancing electricity market, which is launched from July 2019.
According to the company’s website, the launch of a new model of the wholesale electricity market with a division into a number of segments (a balancing market, a day-ahead market, an intra-day market) is scheduled for the second half of 2019 in accordance with the law on the electricity market.
At the end of December 2018, Ukrenergo held a pre-tender meeting with potential participants. Currently, eight companies have acquired tender documentation, in particular, from Ukraine, the Czech Republic, Israel, and Switzerland.
Ukrenergo noted that the implementation of the project to introduce the balancing market is divided into two parts: the purchase of software and the purchase of hardware (Lot 3 “Telecommunications Infrastructure”) as part of the package UE/5 “Implementation of the Balancing Market”).
“Such a division is made in order to purchase software for the entire market platform without being tied to a limited range of hardware vendors. This allows one to purchase hardware at reasonable and competitive prices to deploy the entire market platform software according to its technical specifications,” the company said.
National Energy Company Ukrenergo has signed a contract with General Electric Grid Solutions (Germany) and Chornomorenergospetsmontazh LLC for reconstruction of Kharkivska and Zaliutyne 330 kV substations, the company’s press service has reported. According to the press service, the power equipment, cable communication lines, relay protection and automation devices will be replaced at the substations, new gas insulated 330 kV switchgears and hybrid 110 kV switchgears will be installed.
“Kharkivska and Zaliutyne substations play a significant role in providing power supply to the eastern region of Ukraine. With further integration into ENTSO-E, the importance of these substations will increase significantly. That is why the modernization of these facilities must be carried out at the highest technological level in compliance with all reliability and safety requirements presented by ENTSO-E,” Deputy Director for Investment at Ukrenergo Volodymyr Kudrytsky said.
The project entitled “Reconstruction of Substations in the Eastern Part of Ukraine” in 2019-2022, with funding from the German government, in addition to upgrading 330 kV Kharkivska substation and 330 kV Zaliutyne substation also provides for the reconstruction of 750 kV Zaporizhska substation and 750 kV Dniprovska substation.
CONTRACT, GENERAL ELECTRIC, RECONSTRUCTION, SUBSTATIONS, UKRENERGO
National energy company Ukrenergo and Moldelectrica have signed the operation agreement on the creation of a regulating unit as part of the power grids, which contains general technological aspects, provisions and technical conditions for ensuring synchronous operation of the Ukrainian and Moldovan power grids and fully meets the requirements and rules of the European Network of Transmission System Operators for Electricity (ENTSO- Е).
“The agreement regulates and ensures the synchronous operation of the power girds of Ukraine and Moldova, and in the future it will ensure the synchronous operation of the ENTSO-E power system of the continental Europe,” the company said, citing Ukrenergo’s Deputy CEO for Operational Management, Chief Dispatcher Vitaliy Zaichenko in the report.
According to him, the document approved all the required technological conditions in accordance with European rules and standards to regulate the frequency and power capacity within the power grids of Ukraine and Moldova.
Ukrenergo said that a procedure has also been developed for a quick amendment of the agreement required at the moment of the integration of power grids into ENTSO-E.
In addition, the parties agreed on a quarterly monitoring of the implementation of the agreement.
Ukrenergo operates trunk and interstate transmission lines, as well as centralized dispatching of the country’s integrated power grids. Ukrenergo is a state-owned enterprise under Ukraine’s Ministry of Energy and Coal Industry, but it will be transformed into a private joint-stock company soon.
National Energy Company Ukrenergo has announced the launch of test transaction on the sale and purchase of electricity on the balancing market and the auxiliary service market from December 11, 2018 in line with the terms outlined in the law on the electricity market.
“Please look: exactly on the day stipulated by law, we launched a platform to simulate trading on the balancing market in real time, a period of 15 minutes. Everything is real, only without payments among market players,” Ukrenergo CEO Vsevolod Kovalchuk said, commenting on this event on his page in the Facebook social network.
Ukrenergo said that the first training module was attended by more than 40 representatives of power generation companies, including the largest Ukrainian electricity producers: National Nuclear Generating Company Energoatom, DTEK Energo, Centrenergo, Ukrhydroenergo and Donbasenergo.
The company said in a press release that market players familiarized themselves with the principles of the test platform, the algorithms of operations in the balancing market and the market of auxiliary services in real time, the mechanisms of communication and interaction between market players and the system operator and other things.
“All potential players of the balancing market and the market of auxiliary services will receive logins and passwords (keys) for access to the test platform and will be able to independently test it. After that, we will meet with market players to discuss issues related to the operation of the test platform,” Ukrenergo Deputy Director for Market Development and IT Andriy Nemyrovsky said.
Kovalchuk called information manipulation the objections in his posting that the presented platform is a “dummy,” and not a real system in which the bidding will be carried out.
Nemyrovsky responded to criticism by publishing part of the results of test operations, according to which the price of the balancing market in the period from 18:00 on December 11 to 14:00 on December 12 fell to UAH 900 per 1 MWh and rose to UAH 2,140 per 1 MWh. However, it was mainly UAH 1,400–1,500 per 1 MWh with the wholesale market price approved by the National Commission for the State Regulation of Energy, Housing and Utilities Services (NCER) for the second – fourth quarter being UAH 1,586.69 per MWh.
National Energy Company Ukrenergo has launched second 750/330 kV 999 MVA autotransformer at the Kyivska 750 kV substation, the press service of the enterprise has reported.
The press service said that the new AT-1 has the SERGI modern monitoring and fire protection system. The monitoring system allows remotely monitoring the main modes of operation of the AT-1, generates warning and alarm signals regarding the limiting modes of its operation, allows tracking the technical condition of the autotransformer and, if necessary, taking measures in a timely manner.
The project to install the second autotransformer at the Kyivska substation was implemented by Ukrenergo together with the Croatian company Dalekovod at the expense of loan funds from the European Investment Bank and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.
According to Deputy Director for Operational Management, Chief Dispatcher of Ukrenergo Vitaliy Zaichenko, the establishment of the second autotransformer reduced the load on the existing 750/330 kV autotransformers in Kyiv region, which, in turn, increases the reliability of power supply to Kyiv region and city.
“After the completion of the construction of diversions of the Chornobyl NPP-Kyivska and Pivnichna-Kyivska 330 kV transmission lines, which will connect the Kyivska 750 kV substation to the 330 kV networks of the Kyiv energy complex, this substation will provide 1 GW of additional power to the Rivne and Khmelnytsky NPPs. This will reduce the dependence of consumer power on the generation of Kyiv’s combined heat and power plant five (CHPP) and CHPP six, which burn gas. It will increase the reliability of energy supply and give a new impetus to the industrial and economic development of Kyiv region,” he said.
Ukrenergo operates trunk and interstate transmission lines, as well as centralized dispatching of the country’s integrated power grids. Ukrenergo is a state-owned enterprise under Ukraine’s Ministry of Energy and Coal Industry, but it will be transformed into a private joint-stock company soon.
The National Commission for the State Regulation of Energy, Housing and Utilities Services (NCER) has removed UAH 215.172 million from the tariff of national energy company Ukrenergo saved on procurement in 2017, which would entail the worsening of financial indicators of the state-run enterprise and its payments to the national budget. The press service of Ukrenergo reported that the commission at a meeting on Tuesday cut the company’s tariff for transmission for December 2018 to 3.45 kopecks per kilowatt.
The company said that only on September 4, 2018 the company was permitted to use UAH 215.17 million saved on procurement and obliged to provide a package of documents amending the investment program before October 1.
On September 21, Ukrenergo provided the commission with all the required information, including the approval of regional administrations and the Ministry of Energy and Coal during public hearings. At the same time, on October 24, it became known that the approvals provided by the company did not suit the commission, which demanded a separate letter of approval of changes from the relevant ministry.
As a result, the commission has withdrawn UAH 215.172 million from the tariff of Ukrenergo. The money at that time was already invested in projects for the construction and modernization of the energy infrastructure.
According to Ukrenergo CEO Vsevolod Kovalchuk, the withdrawal of this amount from the investment program is an unreasonable decision, as a result of which the financial indicators of the enterprise and its contributions to the national budget will decrease.
“In fact, this is a redistribution of funds between the energy market players. These funds should have been channeled to additional financing of transitional strategic facilities that are important for the entire industry. We are concerned that this decision will not lead to a decrease in wholesale electricity prices and will not affect the payments of end consumers, but it will negatively affect the indicators of gross income and profit of the company, its payments to the national budget,” Kovalchuhk said.
According to Ukrenergo, the total amount of the investment program of Ukrenergo for 2018 is UAH 2.61 billion. In the nine months ending September 2018, its actual implementation amounted to 94.2%. At the same time, funding continues for projects launched or pending in 2017.
