Capacity for power imports from Europe to increase by winter - Ukrainian energy minister

MOSCOW. May 24 (Interfax) - The permitted capacity for power imports from Europe, which currently stands at 1.7GW per day, will increase by winter, Ukrainian Energy Minister German Galushchenko said.

"I am sure that the decision will be made by winter. I am not ready to say just yet how large it will be, either 2.2-2.3GW or 2GW, but I have no doubt there will be a decision," Ukrainian media quoted Galushchenko as saying at the parliament's Hour of Questions to the Government on Friday.

He described electricity imports as a way to compensate for the shortage of national generation.

In the words of Galushchenko, Ukraine is technically capable of importing over 2GW of electricity from Europe every day.

"Technically, we can import over 2GW, or even 2.4-2.5GW, especially as we launched another line, an interconnector with Europe, last year, that's the Rzeszow-Khmelnitsky NPP line. We are working on two more interconnector projects, but not for this winter. We need several years to implement the projects. Yet we can increase the amount even through the existent technical capacities," Galushchenko said.