The Emergency Situations Commission’s decision will mitigate the impact of imbalances in the electricity market that occurred in the second half of 2022 - ANRE.
The National Energy Regulatory Agency (ANRE) reported this while commenting on the order of the Emergency Situations Commission adopted on May 10. The regulator notes that the evolution of electricity prices in the regional context and the introduction of the new Electricity Market Rules as of June 1, 2022 imposed an additional financial burden on the load of electricity market participants, compared to the previous period. In order to identify the optimal solution to ensure, on the one hand, that the transmission system operator receives from electricity market participants the financial resources necessary to ensure the balancing of the electricity system and, on the other hand, to avoid overloading as a result of applying the price for negative imbalances, following numerous working meetings and discussions held with the electricity companies that are financially responsible for the resulting imbalances, and representatives of the relevant ministry, at the suggestion of ANRE, the Commission for Emergency Situations of Moldova approved deviations from the provisions of the Electricity Market Rules in terms of calculating payments for imbalances for the period from June 1 to December 31, 2022. The proposal to retroactively approve a change in the pricing procedure for imbalances recorded by the parties responsible for balancing is based on the modeling performed and the study of many alternative calculation scenarios, since at the time of the adoption of the Market Rules, the prices for balancing electricity were within comparable limits with the purchase prices for electricity on bilateral contracts. At the same time, retroactive application is due to the lack of experience of the persons responsible for balancing in making forecasts of hourly volumes of consumption or production of electricity, as well as the significant price of balancing electricity coming from sources outside the national electricity system, compared to the price of selling/purchasing electricity under bilateral agreements concluded between manufacturers and suppliers. According to ANRE, despite the fact that the new model of the Electricity Market Rules has been discussed with electric power companies since the approval (August 7, 2020), two main limitations were identified for participants in exercising financial responsibility for created imbalances: one technical, related to submission of physical notices a few days before the day of delivery, which was allowed by a separate decision of ANRE, and financial, related to the price of deficit imbalances, which in some dispatch intervals fixed values of about 15 lei/kWh, which is significantly higher than the prices reflected in sales contracts electricity signed by local market participants. Also, in order to reduce the costs incurred by persons responsible for balancing negative imbalances, in the period from January 1, 2023 until changes are made to the Electricity Market Rules approved by the ANRE decision of August 7, 2020, it is prescribed to change the coefficient fi,def, provided for in subparagraphs 1) and 3) of clause 781 of the Electricity Market Rules, and assign the value 1 (“one”) to it. As ANRE emphasizes, after the adoption of Decree No. 68 dated May 10, 2023 by the Commission for Emergency Situations, the transmission system operator will make the necessary recalculations for settlements with persons responsible for balancing and / or balancing groups. According to estimates made on the basis of preliminary data available to the Agency, the financial burden on market participants will decrease by more than 50%, while ensuring the principle of demotivating market participants to register both negative and positive imbalances. // 12.05.2023 - InfoMarket.
