As early as this week, the European Union may double the import of Ukrainian electricity. This was stated by European Commissioner for Energy Kadri Simson in Brussels at a press conference after an informal meeting of EU energy ministers, which took place on the sidelines of an extraordinary meeting of the EU Energy Council.
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“If commercial electricity trading helps Ukraine offset some revenue losses, then this is the way forward.”. We do not wait for any specific technical conditions to start trading. She's already on her way,"
The European Commissioner recalled that the Ukrainian and Moldovan power transmission networks were synchronized with the European ones in record time.
“I continue to support the next step - a full-fledged electricity trade with Ukraine. The first commercial cross-border exchange of electricity began at the end of June with Romania, with Slovakia in July. Trade opportunities currently stand at 1,500 megawatts. But European transmission network operators are meeting this week and will be discussing doubling that number,” Simson said..
According to the official, this is a mutually beneficial cooperation, because thanks to such actions, “it becomes possible to compensate for some types of production that here, in the EU, work with the help of gas, most likely Russian”.
Simson also said that the EU-Ukraine High Level Energy Market Integration Panel will resume work in September to accelerate necessary reforms..
“This will be even more important, since Ukraine now has the status of an EU candidate with a clear European perspective,” said the European Commissioner..
Recall that the Minister of Energy of Ukraine Herman Galushchenko, with the participation of which a press conference was held, noted that Ukraine has the ability to store more than 12 billion cubic meters of gas in its underground storage facilities in safe places for European companies.
As for the export of Ukrainian electricity, according to him, today it is a direct replacement for Russian gas.
“Today we are exporting 100 megawatts to Europe. But technically, we could already increase the volume to 1.5-1.7 thousand. megawatts, realizing that this can replace up to 5-6 billion cubic meters of Russian gas,” he added.
According to the head of Ukrenergo Volodymyr Kudrytsky, the export of electricity can become perhaps the most profitable business in Ukraine.
Dozens of participants from both Ukraine and Europe can participate in auctions for access to export deliveries of Ukrainian electricity to the EU countries.
As President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky noted, the export of electricity will allow energy companies to use the earned funds to provide Ukrainian consumers with unchanged tariffs..