Buy, not sell: experts deny rumors about electricity exports from Ukraine

The production gap in Ukraine is partially covered by electricity purchased in Slovakia and Romania. writes about it Focus In the article “Electricity is expensive to buy. How long does a power outage in Ukraine last”.

According to the Ministry of Energy, the agreed commercial flows between EU countries and Ukraine (together with Moldova) are 0.7 GW at night and 0.6 GW during the day. The Ministry believes these volumes are not sufficient to completely cover the power outage at the evening peak hour, but attracting imports significantly reduces the imbalance volume. The Ministry of Energy expects the volume of imports to increase, and today traders buy imported electricity – this is the state company ECU, private companies ERU, DTEK group.

Import limits are agreed with ENTSO-E, that is, Ukraine cannot independently decide how much electricity to buy, it can only buy it within established limits. However, as experts have pointed out, in case of a significant increase in limits, the question arises as to who will buy electricity from Europe at European prices, which are many times higher than Ukrainian prices.

“Of course electricity is needed right now but how much does it cost and who will pay because electricity costs more there and we have to answer the question: who will pay for the imports? Ukraine is already in a disastrous financial situation, the market is absolutely unstable, PSO (Special obligations imposed on Ukrainian state companies — Focus) created a situation where the electricity market is unstable, debt is growing and this problem needs to be resolved“Without this, it will not be possible to normalize the electric power industry,” said Alexander Kharchenko, director of the Energy Research Center.

Andrian Prokip, an energy expert at the Ukraine Future Institute, also believes that the price of purchasing electricity in EU countries remains a critical factor.

“The critical factor is the price – the price of electricity in the evening is the most expensive. Yes, imports are required for a willing business to pay. Also for deliveries to critical infrastructure facilities. But if we talk about supply to the population, then given that imports are eight times more expensive than the price of electricity for the population in Ukraine, the question arises – who will pay for it? What will be the source of compensation?” says Andrian Prokip.

Vladimir Omelchenko, director of energy programs at the Razumkov Center, believes this The high price of imported electricity creates a situation where traders can negotiate with the European side to buy more, but buyers are not interested in electricity at these prices.. “Imports are needed and it can partially solve the problem of production shortage, now we have a limit of 600 MW and supply to Romania, Slovakia. The potential import capacity is 2 GW, but ENTSO-E does not allow yet,” said Omelchenko. noted.

Rumors about continued exports from Ukraine Experts interviewed focus, distributed. Ukraine no longer sells electricity abroad. According to Andrian Prokip, ENTSO-E’s open sources indicate no commercial electricity exports from Ukraine to the EU. “There are systemic flows that come to naught in the end, the balance is the same, so no, no commercial electricity exports at the moment“, – said Prokip.

Important

Recall that there was a power outage in the system due to the damage done to the energy system of Ukraine by the missile attacks of the Russian Federation. To stabilize the power system, the operator evaluates the consumption level in each region and decides to turn off the consumers.

As previously reported FocusSince January 2023, electricity imports from Europe to Ukraine have been carried out by industrial establishments. 200-300 MW per hour.