A major crisis in the energy sector has brought the operations of thermal generation facilities to the brink of extinction and drove the situation to a critical stage.
The lowest prices in the history of the day-ahead market, manual regulation of pricing, instability, and imbalances caused by the lack of action on the part of the market regulator in connection with price manipulations by speculative traders, and accrued debts owed to the participants of the balancing market (UAH 13 billion, of which UAH 2.4 billion are owed to DTEK ENERGY by NPC ‘Ukrenergo’) have resulted in the acute shortage of working capital required to prepare the generating capacities for a heating season. The purchase of fuel, repairs, and maintenance of the equipment are at stake.
In the conditions where the abnormally low prices that fail to cover even the minimum cost of any electricity generation forced two-thirds of power units of thermal power plants and one-third of the nuclear power plants to shut down, DTEK ENERGY’s TPPs were operating at maximum capacity. On some days in July, up to 28 power units of DTEK ENERGY’s TPPs were operating simultaneously in the energy system.
However, it is impossible to operate in such a crisis mode for a long time due to technical reasons. As a result of the combination of the above factors, the need to repair and continuously maintain equipment in a proper condition, rejecting requests of NPC ‘Ukrenergo’ for scheduled repairs to power units due to the need to balance the system, as well as due to a major crisis in the energy sector, a number of power units of DTEK ENERGY’s TPPs had been forced to shut down for emergency repairs by 15 July 2021. These power units include power unit No. 3 of Kurakhivs’ka TPP, power units Nos. 3, 4, 5, and 10 of Kryvorizka TPP, power unit No. 1 of Zaporizka TPP, power units Nos. 2 and 3 of Ladyzhynska TPP, and power unit No. 6 of Dobrotvirska TPP.
Amid this threatening situation, DTEK ENERGY has been repeatedly urging the NEURC, relevant ministry, and other stakeholders to immediately interfere in this situation, correct imbalances, remove the instability and manual operation of the market that resulted in the loss of liquidity by the generation.
Currently, 24 power units of DTEK ENERGY’s SPP are in operation and secure the capacity of 3,810 MW in the Ukrainian United Energy System.