Ukraine’s electricity exports shrink, Moldova ceases buying it
In January-April 2009, Ukraine's total electricity exports shrank 2.2 fold against the equivalent period of last year down to 1,063 million kilowatt/hours. And an essential reason for this was that Moldova ceased buying power from Ukraine and began receiving it from the Moldavskaya Power Plant (MPP) (near Tiraspol, the Republic of Moldova's biggest energy object, presently owned by the Inter RAO EES power giant of Russia).
Moldova's share in Ukraine's overall energy exports dropped to merely 0.2% from the last year's 40%.
Compare: in the first 4 months of this year, Moldova bought from Ukraine only 2.2 million kilowatt/hours against 930.3 million kWh in 2008.
Last October, Ukraine announced it was pushing up its electricity rate for Moldova in 2009 by as much as 77.11% up to 7.5 US cents per a kilowatt/hour. Upon learning about such exorbitant growth, Chisinau entered into negotiations with the Moldavskaya Power Plant and already in December 2008 the two parties signed a contract on Moldova's importing power at a rate of 5-5.5 US cents/kWh till 31 March, 2010.
MPP is the biggest power generator in this region of Europe. Having a projected capacity of 2,500 megawatts, in the Soviet times it used to provide with electricity the whole of Moldova (including Transnistrian region), southwestern Ukraine, and exported quite much to Balkan states.
After over a decade of control by the separatist Transnistrian authorities, in 2005 the Plant was bought for 100 million US dollars by Inter RAO EES of Russia, which offered to Moldova to buy electricity at a rate of 4.08 US cents per a kilowatt/hour instead of the previous 3.05 US cents. However, Chisinau preferred to obtain electricity from Ukraine for 2.5 US cents. As a result, MPP had to leave only one of its 12 blocks working, and used the time for a thorough repair and modernization of the object with a view to subsequently begin power exports to Europe.
In 2006, the National Energy Regulatory Agency (ANRE) of the Republic of Moldova issued to MPP a license for electricity generation and exporting.
In 2007, MPP launched another 2 turbines into operation, and in 2008 one more, thus bringing the number of working blocks to 4. Ninety-five percent of total electricity output is exported to Romania via the Moldovan power network.
Since the start of electricity supplies to the mainland Moldova, the plant has doubled its power output by engaging several more turbines that had idled for several years.
Russian experts are saying that MPP's technical strength and the transportation capacity of Moldovan lines can ensure the exports of up to 1.2 thousand megawatt/hours of electricity a year to Southeast European countries.
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