Moldova will introduce a mechanism for purchasing electricity on the wholesale market from at least two sources.
This is provided for by amendments to the Law on Electricity, which the Parliament adopted on Thursday in the second reading in order to improve the security of electricity supply and diversify sources of electricity supply. As Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Infrastructure and Regional Development Andrei Spinu noted earlier, in recent years Moldova has purchased electricity from a single supplier. However, the natural gas supply crisis in October 2021 revealed risks to Moldova's energy security in the face of significant dependence on energy imports from a single supplier. This crisis has affected not only the gas market, but also the electricity market, a market where Moldavskaya GRES is currently the main supplier of electricity. Considering that Moldavskaya GRES reduced production during the gas crisis, since it mainly uses natural gas in production, 32.4 GWh of electricity was received from Ukraine without a contract in October 2021 alone to meet national electricity consumption. Andrei Spinu noted that the current situation emphasizes the need 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 consumers. Since the general tender rules result in a single winner, a number of amendments have been proposed to allow for multiple winners in energy procurement tenders. Thus, participants in the next auctions will have to buy electricity from at least two sources as a measure to improve the security of the country's energy supply. It is planned that the National Agency for Energy Regulation will develop an instruction that will establish quantitative ratios for purchases from the first two significant bidders, depending on the percentage difference between their prices. For example: if the difference between the first two bidders is less than 5%, they will be contracted at a ratio of 70-30%, if the difference between the offered prices is 5-15%, then the contract ratio will be 80-20%, and if the difference is more than 30%, then only one winner will be established. As Andrei Spinu emphasized, these changes are planned to apply starting from tenders for the purchase of electricity, which will be held in February-March 2022, and the current contracts for the purchase of electricity expire on March 31, 2022. // 03.02.2022 — InfoMarket
