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

May 22-28

Summary

• According to the Main Intelligence Directorate of Ukraine’s Ministry of Defence, the occupiers were probably preparing large-scale provocations at the Zaporizhzhia NPP and thus disrupted the planned rotation of the IAEA personnel. The purpose of creating a radiation hazard by imitating an accident may be a pressure on the international community. Also, Russia is increasing its military presence at the site, and the territory of units 1, 2, 4 is actually used as a logistics and military base.
• According to the Minister of Finance Serhii Marchenko, the financing needs for Ukraine’s priority recovery in 2023 amount to 14.1 billion USD, incl. 3.3 billion USD for the energy sector.
• In the power system, the capacity deficit in certain hours is increasingly visible. Namely, on May 27 from 21:00 to 22:00 Ukraine received emergency assistance from the power system of Romania to cover the evening peak of consumption. Households are urged to transfer the use of electricity from the evening hours (19:00 to 22:00) to the morning, day, or night. According to Ukrenergo, 27 GW of installed capacity was lost (occupied or damaged) due to Russia’s aggression. Given this, electricity import volumes increased, while exports dropped to minimal levels.
• On May 28, in daytime hours, the TSO was forced to curtail the production of electricity from RES to balance the power system. Meanwhile, the level of settlements with RES producers under feed-in tariff amounted to 59.5% (53.3% for 2022 and 99% for 2021).
• The Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal announced plans to accumulate 14.7 bcm of gas in storage by the start of the heating season. A plan to restore 1,710 MW of generating capacity had been agreed. He also instructed to increase the crossborder capacity for exports and imports of electricity to/from the EU.
• The Ministry of Communities, Territories and Infrastructure Development and the European Investment Bank announced the start of selecting reconstruction projects. Also, the Cabinet of Ministers has allocated 588 million UAH in additional subventions for 7 regions to implement 26 projects under the program. Meanwhile, the allocated 4.4 billion UAH for the eRestoration programme are sufficient to restore almost 27,000 damaged residential properties.
• The Ministry of Energy has announced the launch of a joint project with Germany called Renewables for a Resilient Ukraine (R2U) for about 2 million EUR. The project will select up to 20 communities to conduct an energy audit of critical infrastructure facilities for further installing RES systems.
• The NEURC set tariffs for electricity distribution with a two-stage increase (from June 1 and from July 1) for 18 DSOs and a single-stage increase from July for 5 DSOs operating on the frontline territory.
• Gas TSOs of Ukraine and Poland presented a project to increase the firm capacity for gas transmission from Poland to Ukraine. It includes the construction of a gas pipeline and a gas measuring station by GAZ SYSTEM S.A. and reconstruction of a compressor station by GTSOU.
• The current electricity price for households covers only 28% of the cost – so the NEURC. According to the Regulator’s calculations, the market price today is over 5.5 UAH/kWh.
•  Two alternative draft laws were registered at the Verkhovna Rada which envisage the corporate reform of gas TSO by joining Mahistralni Gazoprovody Ukrainy JSC (MGU) to GTSOU LLC and transferring the latter’s corporate rights to the Ministry
  of Energy.
• The government approved the 2023 financial plan of Ukrnafta, which envisages 74 billion UAH in net income from operations, 12 billion UAH in net profit, 25 billion UAH in tax payments, and 9 billion UAH in investments, in particular a record 5.5 billion
  UAH in upstream investments. In January-April 2023, the company yielded 7 billion UAH in profit. Some upstream assets were also transferred to the management of Ukrnafta.
• DTEK commissioned a new wind power plant – the Tylihulska WPP (114 MW). The producer refused from getting a feed-in tariff and entered the bilateral contracts market.