Ukraine’s Increased Electricity Supplies to Poland Benefit Rinat Akhmetov’s DTEK

In June, Energoatom returned one of the NPP reactors from repairs ahead of schedule in order to cover the shortage of electricity, due to which it had to be imported and saved. The increased generation has led to the fact that supplies to Poland have increased, from which the oligarch Rinat Akhmetov benefits.

In the first days of June, Ukraine resumed electricity exports to Poland. According to ENTSO-E, since June 1, the capacity of commercial supplies to the neighboring country has amounted to 200 MW. Electricity is supplied from 9.00 to 14.00.

Ukraine also reduced the import of electricity from Slovakia.

Obviously, the change in supplies is due to the improvement in the situation in the energy system of Ukraine. The operator of Ukrainian nuclear power plants announced the withdrawal of one reactor from repair ahead of schedule.

“At the end of May, one of the domestic nuclear power units, after a major overhaul, was connected to the grid five days ahead of schedule,” Energoatom reports.

However, the Ukrainian power system operator reports a still tense situation during peak consumption in the evening.

“Due to active repair campaigns at thermal power plants, as well as at some NPP power units, a smaller number of power units are operating in the energy system. To cover the evening peak of consumption, the capacities of hydro and thermal power plants are used to the maximum”, – reports “Ukrenergo”.

Earlier, in the second half of May, a surplus of electricity in Ukraine due to powerful hydro generation ended in a deficit and a failure in the energy system due to the shutdown of main lines, the reasons for which are only being investigated in Kiev.

Head of Ukrenergo Vladimir Kudritsky Forbes told Forbes that after the preemptive strikes of the Russian army, the company’s specialists restored the functionality of approximately 70% of the damaged power system facilities, but this does not mean that they work as before.

“Somewhere around 40-50% of the capacity we temporarily lost,” Kudritsky said.

The main beneficiary of electricity supplies to Poland is Rinat Akhmetov’s DTEK, from whose Dobrotvorskaya TPP the export takes place. If on the Ukrainian Energy Exchange the wholesale price of electricity is 75 euros per MW, then in Poland the quotes today are 93 euros per MW.

Energoatom, in turn, supplies most of the electricity to the population at fixed rates.

At the same time, both companies recently got into a scandal, which the Ukrainian regulator promised to deal with. Its essence lies in the fact that in March Energoatom’s traders overestimated the cost of electricity that was traded on the stock exchange, and did not buy it. As a result, within a month, 300,000 MWh were transferred to the balancing market, where DTEK structures bought it at 1 kopeck per MW. Later they sold electricity for UAH 3,000. per MW and received an additional UAH 900 million. (23 million euros).