In Moldova, it is planned to purchase electricity on the wholesale market from at least 2 separate sources, and the share of its purchase will be determined depending on the price difference.
This is provided for by amendments to the Law on Electricity, which were approved by the government at a meeting on Wednesday. As Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Infrastructure and Regional Development Andrei Spinu noted, the changes were developed by the department to improve the reliability of electricity supply to Moldova and diversify the sources of its supply. He stressed that the crisis in natural gas supplies in October 2021 revealed risks for Moldova's energy security in the context of a significant dependence on energy imports. This crisis has affected not only the gas market, but also the electricity market, a market where the main supplier of electricity is currently the Moldavskaya GRES, located in the Transnistrian region and owned by the Russian company Inter RAO. Considering that Moldavskaya GRES reduced production during the gas crisis, since it mainly uses natural gas in production, 32.4 GWh of electricity was received from Ukraine without a contract in October 2021 alone to ensure national electricity consumption. Andrei Spinu noted that the current situation emphasizes the need for, according to the law, at least two winners in tenders organized for the purchase of electricity by suppliers who resell the purchased electricity at regulated prices to end consumers. Since the general tender rules result in a single winner, a number of amendments have been proposed in order to improve the reliability of electricity supply in order to create a balance between obtaining the lowest price and achieving a high degree of reliability of electricity supply. To do this, the law proposes to replace the single criterion of “minimum price” with a set of objectives pursued by the auction, including the objectives of ensuring the security of supply, thereby creating the possibility of determining several winners in tenders for the purchase of energy. It is planned that the National Agency for Energy Regulation will develop an Instruction that will establish quantitative ratios for purchases from the first two significant bidders, depending on the percentage difference between their prices. For example: if the difference between the first two bidders is less than 5%, they will be contracted at a ratio of 70-30%, if the difference between the offered prices is 5-15%, then the contract ratio will be 80-20%, and if the difference is more than 30%, then only one winner will be established. As Andrei Spinu emphasized, these changes are planned to apply starting from tenders for the purchase of electricity, which will be held in February-March 2022, and the existing contracts for the purchase of electricity expire on March 31, 2022. // 19.01.2022- InfoMarket.
