Moldovan authorities plan to buy electricity on the wholesale market from at least 2 separate sources, and the purchase share will be determined depending on the difference in the price offered by the sources.
The amendments to the Law on Electricity, elaborated by the Ministry of Infrastructure and Regional Development, stipulate this. The respective draft law has been submitted for public consultations. According to the ministry, the amendments to the law were developed to improve the reliability of Moldova's power supply and diversify power supply sources. According to the ministry, the crisis of natural gas supply in October 2021 revealed the risks to energy security of Moldova with its high dependence on imported energy carriers. This crisis affected not only the gas market, but also the electricity market, the market in which at present the main energy supplier is the Moldovan HPP, located in the Transnistrian region and owned by the Russian company Inter RAO. Given that the Moldovan HPP reduced production during the gas crisis because it uses mostly natural gas, 32.4 GWh of electricity was received from Ukraine without a contract in October 2021 alone to meet national electricity consumption. As noted by the Ministry of Infrastructure and Regional Development, this situation underscores the need, according to the law, for at least two winners in tenders organized for the purchase of electricity by suppliers who resell the purchased electricity at regulated prices to end users. Since the general rules of tenders lead to the determination of a single winner, in order to improve the reliability of electricity supply, a number of amendments have been proposed to create a balance between obtaining the lowest price and achieving a high degree of electricity supply reliability. For this purpose, it is proposed to replace the sole criterion of "minimum price" in the law with a set of objectives pursued by the auction, including the objectives of security of supply, thereby creating the possibility of determining several winners in energy procurement tenders. It is planned that the National Energy Regulatory Agency (ANRE) will develop instructions that will establish quantitative ratios for purchases from the first two significant bidders, depending on the percentage difference between their proposed prices. For example: if the difference between the first two bidders is less than 5%, they will be contracted at a 70%-30% ratio, if the difference between the proposed prices is 5%-15%, the ratio will be 80%-20%, and if the difference is greater than 30%, only one winner will be identified. These changes are scheduled to apply starting with the power purchase tenders that will take place in the first months of 2022. The existing electricity purchase contracts expire March 31, 2022. // 30.12.2021 – InfoMarket
