In Moldova, the conditions for the provision of financial guarantees by participants in electricity tenders have been changed.
The amount of such a guarantee will be set within reasonable limits by the National Agency for Energy Regulation. This is provided for by amendments to the Law on Electricity, adopted by Parliament and entered into force after being published on February 5 in Monitorul oficial. The amendments were developed by the Ministry of Infrastructure and Regional Development for the implementation of the balancing electricity market by providing the balancing market operator SE Moldelectrica with the necessary tools to establish reasonable guarantees for electricity balancing. So far, the energy balancing guarantee has consisted of providing a financial guarantee representing the monetary value of the value of the market participants' estimated monthly electricity consumption. In a situation where the share of balancing electricity in the consumption structure is very small, at the level of 10-15%, a guarantee in the form of a monetary equivalent of monthly consumption is a significant financial burden for market participants. As noted by the Ministry of Infrastructure and Regional Development, the National Agency for Energy Regulation previously approved the Electricity Market Rules, which provide for the signing of a contract for the provision of balancing services by Moldelectrica (transmission system operator), as well as the responsibility of market participants (called parties responsible for balancing) to Moldelectrica for the created imbalance. However, these provisions could not be applied due to the requirement of the Law on Electricity, which provides in Article 84 (6) that, when concluding a balancing contract, the party responsible for balancing or the responsible balancing group is required to provide a financial guarantee in an amount not less than the calculated monthly consumption of the balancing party or balancing group. The Ministry of Infrastructure and Regional Development noted that this requirement is difficult to meet, since it practically implies a doubling of the financial resources necessary for the implementation of the current activities of market participants, and at the same time does not bring significant added value. In this regard, the agency proposed amending the Electricity Law so that financial guarantees are set at a reasonable level based on a transparent procedure developed by Moldelectrica and approved by NAER. It is agreed that in case of an imbalance in the power grids, the party responsible for balancing, or the balancing group responsible, are obliged to pay the imbalance to the transmission system operator in the amount calculated by the transmission system operator in accordance with the Electricity Market Rules and the methodology approved by NAER. // 07.02.2022 - InfoMarket
