Competition in the electricity market of Moldova is limited by the lack of a balancing electricity market - Premier Energy.
The company announced this when presenting details and clarifications regarding a recent tender for the purchase of electricity. As noted, on March 28, Premier Energy signed a new contract for the sale and purchase of electricity from the Moldovan HPP to satisfy its consumers in the period from April 1, 2021 to March 31, 2022 and will buy electricity at a price of $0.0535 per kWh. It is emphasized that the approval by ANRE of new contracts for the supply of energy, which entered into force on April 1, is good news for everyone, as it is vital to ensure the security of electricity supply in Moldova. Premier Energy drew attention to the fact that, as the energy regulator recently pointed out, the electricity market in Moldova faces structural deficiencies that imply the dominant position of certain economic agents, which is known to all entities working in the energy sector, and which undoubtedly does not contribute to the complete development of the competitive market. From this situation it follows that annual tenders for the purchase of electricity always end with a single price for the entire sector, the same winner (in recent years it was the state-owned company Energocom) and the same source of generation (usually the Moldovan HPP, in some years with insignificant participation of energy traders from Ukraine). Premier Energy clarified that the main factor limiting competition in the electricity market in Moldova is the absence of a balancing electricity market, which will be available after the new Electricity Market Rules take effect. “De facto, at present, electricity imports from Ukraine without a contract to cover energy balancing cannot be carried out, as the transmission system operator Moldelectrica confirmed in a letter in June 2020 in the context of the electricity supply tender held last year. To eliminate this restriction, SE Moldelectrica, under the control of ANRE, committed itself to the Energy Community to introduce by October 2021 a balancing energy coverage mechanism (established in the new Market Rules), transparent and accessible to all participants in the electricity market,” stressed Premier Energy. It is noted that in recent tenders for the purchase of electricity, representatives of the Energy Community Secretariat, along with a high-level adviser to the European Union in the field of energy, participated as observers. // 02.04.2021 – InfoMarket
