Moldova since early April has illegally taken 30 million kilowatt hours of electricity from the Ukrainian power grid, reads a statement of National Energy Company Ukrenergo, which provides for technical parallel operation of the Ukrainian power grid, issued late on April 4.
The company said that the said actions of Moldova could lead to serious problems with the registration of net power flow over the reporting periods.
"While talks are being held between the commercial operators of the two states on the signing of foreign economic contracts to supply electricity from the Ukrainian power grid to the Moldovan power grid, which would regulate the net power flow over the reporting periods, all power taken by Moldova could be assessed by the customs bodies as having been smuggled," reads the report.
Ukrenergo said that from April 1, 2012 Ukraine stopped commercial supplies of Ukrainian electricity to Moldova. The country’s state operator Moldelectrica is to support a zero power flow on the Ukraine-Moldova border thanks to the increase of generating capacities of Moldova GRES or other sources.
"However, all appeals from Ukrenergo to Moldelectrica to fulfill the liabilities foreseen in a technical agreement signed on June 3, 2001 on the provision of parallel operation of the Ukrainian and Moldovan power grids have brought no results," reads the report.
As reported, in late March some Moldovan mass media reported, with reference to Moldovan Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Economy Valeriu Lazar, that DTEK Power Trade and INTER RAO UES proposed to increase the price of electricity supplies by an average of 20%, to $0.073-0.075 per kWh. According to Lazar, the increase in the price is unjustified, and Moldova plans to replace part of electricity volumes by electricity imported from Romania.
Due to Moldova’s reluctance to prolong the contract with new prices, DTEK Power Trade from April 1, 2012 ceased commercial supplies of Ukrainian electricity to the republic.
Chisinau since April has been importing Ukrainian electricity under a technical agreement on the parallel operation of the power systems of Ukraine and Moldova. State-owned enterprise Energomarket (Kyiv) deals with administration of payments on electricity flows with Moldova and the need to formalize contractual relations on the sale and purchase of unscheduled flows of electricity.
In late December 2011, the National Commission for Energy Regulation (NCER) set a price for the sale and purchase of Ukrainian electricity required to support parallel operation of the Ukrainian and Moldovan power grids amounting to a total of seven million kilowatt hours at the level of the wholesale market price approved by the commission of the certain period.
National Energy Company Ukrenergo supports the technical operation of the Ukrainian power grid in parallel mode. The press service of Ukrenergo told Interfax-Ukraine that there would not be problems with electricity supplies at settlements in Odesa region that are located on the border with Moldova if Chisinau starts taking more electricity from the Ukrainian power grid.
