REUTERS
Ukraine has no need today to import electricity from the Russian Federation, while there is a surplus of generating capacities in the country’s power grid due to the warm weather, acting director of state-owned Ukrenergo Vsevolod Kovalchuk said Wednesday at a press conference in Kyiv.
"Now we have no need to import electricity; at the moment we have excess of nuclear power generation," he said.
According to Kovalchuk, the weather is now "absolutely irregular." "It is too warm, which is very good for us," said the acting head of Ukrenergo.
He also said that emergency measures in the electricity market of Ukraine, imposed by the government on December 15, are needed to save anthracite coal for the needs of thermal power plants.
Read alsoEnergoatom’s revenue from sales of electricity increases 35% over 11 monthsAs UNIAN reported earlier, Ukraine stopped November 13, 2015 the import of Russian electricity due to the completion of repairs at the power unit No.3 of the Rivne nuclear power station and its re-connection to the power grid.
Stocks of deficient anthracite coal in warehouses of the Ukrainian TPPs fell by 4.1% down to 701,400 tonnes from 731,300 tones, between December 7 and December 14.
On November 27, Prime Minister of Ukraine Arseniy Yatsenyuk announced the lack of available coal reserves and demanded that the relevant officials provide a clear action plan to ensure the stable operation of the power grid amid fuel shortage.
Anthracite coal from South Africa was selected the reserve source of supply. Ukraine used to purchase it in the past year. In the current heating season, the first BULK CHINA cargo ship with 168,000 tonnes of South African coal arrived in the Yuzhniy seaport on December 5.
On December 9, the state company Centrenergo reported that the first 43 rail cars with South African coal arrived in Tripilska TPP and was unloaded into the coal depot, while the remaining 159 rail cars were sent on December 10 to the Tripilia-Dniprovske TPP.