Ukrenergo head: Ukraine does not export electricity

MOSCOW. Dec 9 (Interfax) - Chairman of Ukraine's national power grid operator Ukrenergo Vladimir Kudritsky has dismissed reports that Ukraine exports electricity to its detriment.

"This is a fake. Ukraine has not exported electricity since October 11. Full stop," Ukrainian media quoted Kudritsky as saying a briefing in Kiev on Friday.

Ukrenergo does not even distribute access to international power transmission lines for export purposes, he said.

He urged to distinguish between commercial export and technical flows of electricity between integrated power grids.

"Unfortunately, electricity is unaware of borders between countries. When power grids are interconnected, as is the case of the Ukrainian, Moldovan, Romanian, Hungarian, Slovak and Polish grids, there are so-called technical flows. As a rule, they are rather small, tens of megawatts, but the balance is always close to zero," Kudritsky said.

Sometimes we see loop flows of larger volumes, he said. "For instance, renewable so energy sources generation is rather developed in southern Romania, but links between southern and northern Romania are weak, and for electricity to get from the south to the north, it has to cross Moldova, Ukraine and Hungary and get back to Romania. This is an example of a route along which electricity travels in the integrated Ukrainian-European grid," he said.

It is obvious in this case that identical volumes of power leave and return to Ukraine, he said. "There is no less electricity in the Ukrainian power grid, and all of the electricity generated by Ukrainian plants remains in Ukraine," Kudritsky said.