Ukraine is faced with a new challenge – the inability to import more electricity in order to overcome the crisis and reduce the duration of blackouts.
This information was reported by Forbes, URA-Inform reports.
It is noted that the energy system has reached the maximum permitted rate of current supply from Europe and has hit the ceiling. In particular, in June, the same amount of electricity was purchased abroad as in the first five months of the year. And in early July, imports at some times reached 1.7 GWh – this is the maximum allowed by the European grid operator ENTSO-E.
Given the growing electricity consumption, the Ukrainian government hopes to increase the permitted import capacity by 30% – up to 2.2 GWh. Poland has already expressed its readiness to send electricity produced at local coal-fired power plants to Ukraine.
This idea has several advantages for both sides:
— there is a surplus of coal in Poland;
— the Polish government will be able to circumvent its obligations on «green» transition;
— electricity supplies will be paid for with EU funds.
However, the issue of the technological inability of European countries to quickly increase the cross-section still remains unresolved. To do this, they need to invest in their own energy infrastructure – otherwise, with increased crossings, some EU countries may themselves face disruptions in energy supply.
The decision depends on ENTSO-E, and this is not in Ukraine’s favor. The regulator assesses risks on the basis of emergency operation, and not normal operation.
Director of the Center for Energy Research, Alexander Kharchenko, insists that Ukraine has done everything that depended on it to increase its intersection with Europe. In particular, we added the necessary equipment and adjusted the technical characteristics to European ones – this should be enough to increase the cross-section to 2.2 GWh.
We remind you that it was previously reported why the situation with electricity had deteriorated significantly: Ukrenergo explained the situation.