Russian War Against Ukraine: Energy Dimension | DiXi Group Alert – weekly review

December 11 – 17

Summary

• • As of December 18, 454 settlements in Ukraine remained without electricity supply due to hostilities and technological disruptions.
  • The occupied Zaporizhzhia NPP has been reconnected to the only remaining backup power line but the overall supply remains fragile and vulnerable – IAEA.
  • Electricity consumption was covered by domestic production, as well as by imports (increased by 2.5 times) and emergency assistance (activated on December 11, from Romania and Poland in the total amount of 3,400 MWh).
  • The Regulator amended Distribution Systems Code to regulate the operations of Small Distribution Systems (SDS).
  •  The NEURC has also found, that Ukrenergo violated the Licensing Conditions: certified commercial metering data of electricity producers receiving feed-in tariff, provided by the TSO for January-December 2022, didn’t indicate that some of the units operated in an nonsynchronous mode with the IPS of Ukraine.
  • On December 14, the ENTSO-E Assembly approved the fully fledged membership of Ukrainian TSO (Ukrenergo) in the association from 1 January 2024. Ukrenergo and EBRD have also signed a new 150 million EUR loan agreement to support the liquidity and stability of the TSO functioning under martial law.
  • The CEO of Naftogaz Oleksii Chernyshov announced the beginning of the development of the company’s decarbonization strategy.
  • The Supreme Court denied PJSC VK Ukrnaftoburinnia to open cassation proceedings against the court decision, which deprived the company of a special permit to use the Sakhalinske field. In parallel, ARMA filed a second cassation and appealed to the Prosecutor General’s Office to intervene in the situation.
  • The wholesale prices of liquefied petroleum gas continued to decrease; on December 8-15, the average retail price of LPG also decreased by 2.46 UAH/l to 32.79 UAH/l.
  • The Bila Tserkva City Council bought the single property complex of the Bila Tserkva CHP from the National Bank of Ukraine.
  • Energoatom and Westinghouse Electric Company signed an agreement to purchase equipment for the Khmelnytskyi NPP Unit 5 to be constructed using the AP1000 technology.
  • The Energy Community Secretariat in its 2023 Implementation Report assessed the progress of Ukraine in complying with the Community’s acquis: the Markets and Integration cluster was assessed at 69%, Decarbonization of the Energy Sector – 44%, Ensuring Energy Security – 61%; Improving the Environment – 52%, and Performance of Authorities – 76%.
  • 28 out of 63 second-level facilities to protect energy infrastructure from shrapnel and drone strikes are completed – Head of the State Agency for Infrastructure Restoration and Development Mustafa Nayyem.
  • UNDP experts have assessed 26 healthcare facilities in the Kyiv, Odesa, Zhytomyr and Volyn regions for the installation of solar panels provided by the Italian company ENEL as part of the European Commission initiative.
  • As of December 13, the total amount of donor commitments to the Ukraine Energy Support Fund reached 390 million EUR – Ministry of Energy. Of this amount, 229 million EUR has actually been transferred, while the rest are pledged and formalized contributions.