ENTSO-E boosts capacity for electricity supplies to Ukraine to 850 MW - Ukrenergo

MOSCOW. March 30 (Interfax) - The technical capacity for importing electricity from continental Europe into Ukraine and Moldova has increased from 700 MW to 850 MW for all hours of the day, Ukrainian media reported, citing state power company Ukrenergo.

"This decision was made by the transmission system operators of the European network ENTSO-E after analyzing safe scenarios for Ukraine's and the EU's energy systems for commercial exchanges during imports," Ukrenergo said on Telegram.

The ability to import electricity from Europe when there is a shortage of capacity in the Ukrainian energy system is an important factor in the country's energy security, Ukrenergo CEO Vladimir Kudritsky said.

The company also said that these international interconnect capacity figures are not final. ENTSO-E and Ukrenergo will continue assessing maximum possible throughput capacity for electricity trading, and will soon review capacity for both imports and exports, the company said.

Maximum capacity for electricity exports to Europe remains at 400 MW. Ukraine has not exported electricity to the EU since October 11, 2022.

Ukrenergo also said that the list of EU countries from which Ukraine can receive emergency electricity aid has been expanded thanks to the signing of an agreement between the company and 15 ENTSO-E system operators.

Now Ukraine can also get technical electricity assistance from EU countries other than those neighboring it. The agreement on multilateral emergency assistance goes into effect on March 29, Ukrenergo said.

Emergency assistance consists of urgent supplies of electricity from another country at the request of the system operator in order to avoid power outages for large numbers of customers when internal reserves and resources are already exhausted, the company said. It differs from imports in that this is an emergency measure meant to deal with an emergency situation and the need for it cannot be forecast ahead of time. Imports occur at previously set times under signed commercial contracts.