Competition agency accuses energy regulator of inaction on electricity market

The Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine (AMCU) established signs of violation of the law on the protection of economic competition in the inactivity of the National Energy and Utilities Regulatory Commission of Ukraine (NEURC) in the electricity market and gave this regulator recommendations binding for consideration.

According to the document dated July 2, published on the committee's website on Wednesday, NEURC did not submit proposals on improving the conditions of the public service obligations regime (PSO) to the Cabinet of Ministers, improperly conducted and published the results of monitoring the functioning of the electricity market, and also improperly provided for operation of the balancing market by the transmission system operator.

Referring to the letter of the Security Service of Ukraine dated June 5 of this year, the committee pointed to the mechanism introduced since March this year by thermal power generation companies (TPPs and CHPPs), which consists in selling the volume of electricity that significantly exceeds the volume of real generation to controlled suppliers.

The committee also accused the regulator of the imperfect market rules approved by it, allowing such manipulations.

The committee added that since the launch of the new electricity market on July 1, 2019, NEURC has never reported violations of the antimonopoly legislation, and the last monitoring of the wholesale market published by it was made for the third quarter of 2019.

Source: www.en.interfax.com.ua