Ukrenergo approves 10 year development strategy

National energy company Ukrenergo has approved a development strategy for 2017-2026. One of the key goals of the strategy is integration into the European Network of Transmission System Operators (ENTSO-E).

"The document clearly determines the benchmarks, tasks and goals for all aspects of the company's operation aiming at reorganizing the company into the ENTSO-E integrated operator in the top five European transmission system operators (TSO) for electricity in 10 years," the company said.

The strategy contains the environment changes forecast and a SWOT analysis. It has the interim goal implementation benchmarks for the near (one or two years), medium (five years) and long term outlook.

Ukrenergo Director for Investment and Strategy Volodymyr Kudrytsky said that experience of systemic operators from Austria, Germany, Poland, Czechia, Slovakia, Georgia and Hungary was taken into account.

"The trends are almost similar everywhere: the introduction of smart grids, the reduction of the influence of human factors on most of the processes, the new approach to dispatch and balancing, taking into account the growing share of renewable energy generation," he said.

The press service of Ukrenergo said that the key elements of the strategy are the following: the institutional rebuilding (Ukrainian power grid's integration into ENTSO-E, operations in the conditions of the new electricity market and corporate governance reform), technological re-equipment of infrastructure (IT, introduction of new dispatch solutions, Smart Grid and modernization of power lines and substations) and the increase of operating efficiency (introduction of the ERP system, quick decision making, reduction of operating expenses influencing the tariff).

Ukrenergo Head Vsevolod Kovalchuk said that the implementation of the strategy would help to speed up the reorganization of the company into a modern, mobile and transparent company.

According to the document, today no substation of Ukrenergo can be operated remotely. There is no possibility of automatically testing power lines. The relevant pilot projects will be implemented in next one or two years bringing all 102 substations to remote control in 10 years and having automated tests for 95% of power lines.

Ukrenergo at present assesses the technological readiness of Ukrainian power grid to joint ENTSO-E at 15%. Ukrainian legislation has been harmonized with European by 5% with the current level of power grids integration of 10%. The strategy envisages reaching 99-100% in five years for the above-mentioned elements.

It is planned to increase the technical possible power capacity exchange volume between Ukrainian power grid and ENTSO-E from 885 MW to 2,200 MW in five years and to 4,000 MW in 10 years.