Delay on passing power market bill to worsen payment problems, increase wholesale price – Ukrenergo head

Ukraine's Verkhovna Rada must speed up the adoption of bill No. 4493 on the electricity market at second reading, Head of national energy company Ukrenergo Vsevolod Kovalchuk has said.

"If lawmakers continue delaying the approval of the bill, the sector and the market would see the scenario that is far from optimistic: problems with payments and further growth of prices on the wholesale electricity market," he wrote in op-ed for the Ekonomichna Pravda publication.

He said that the existing market model has run out of steam, and trust of society to its key players is at a critically low level, while the adoption of the bill would accelerate the fundamental changes in the electricity sector.

"The whole country would finally stop tracking the Rotterdam+ drama, as there would not be any need in this formula. It would be important for consumers how much electricity in the electricity point costs, not in the Netherlands," he said.

Kovalchuk said that it is planned to sign the agreement on Ukraine's joining the European Network of Transmission System Operators (ENTSO-E) before autumn 2017, and the country is to meet all the requirements for the integration during five years.

"I hope that in several months the agreement to join [ENTSO-E] will be signed and we would have five years to observe all the requirements to integrate ENTSO-E. It would take the same time for the full implementation, launch of the new model of the electricity market and its polishing. However, without the new market and the new law on the electricity market the integration with Europe would have no sense. It would not give the right to select for consumers and would not be able to destroy monopoly on the domestic market," he said.