Establishment of the regulatory framework for the EAEU common electric power market was discussed by representatives of the energy authorities and leading energy providers of the Eurasian Five at the 18th meeting of the EEC Advisory Committee for Electrical Energy under the Eurasian Economic Commission's Board in Cholpon-Ata (Kyrgyzstan) on August 24.
The meeting settled a significant number of unapproved provisions. Two draft documents in the package of the rules for the functioning of the common electric power market are ready for high-level adoption and approval. According to Vadim Zakrevsky, EEC Director of Energy Department, the draft rules for mutual electric power trade are at the final stage of preparation.
The Advisory Committee approved the draft rules for determination and allocation of capacity of interstate cross-sections on the EAEU common electric power market (CEPM). The draft document will be considered at the EEC Board meeting in September this year.
The meeting also approved the draft rules for access to the services of interstate transmission of electricity (capacity) on the EAEU CEPM, except for the matter of concluding contracts on non-trade interstate transmission of electric power in case of disagreement over its terms between the parties (it will be considered by the EEC Council).
The draft rules for mutual electric power trade on the EAEU CEPM settled the trade currency question of the Union's CEPM. The parties agreed that in case of centralized trade on a day-ahead basis and under fixed-term contracts supply requests and energy prices will be set in the currency of the Member State within the jurisdiction of which the centralized trade operator conducts its activities.
At the instruction of the EEC Board, the Advisory Committee additionally considered the need to preserve the items addressed to the governments of the EAEU countries in the draft disposition of the EEC Council on specifying centralized electric power trade operators (trading platforms) on a day-ahead basis and under fixed-term contracts. As this draft document contains instructions addressed to the governments of Belarus, Kazakhstan and Russia, there is a guarantee that specified trading platforms will implement a set of measures aimed at modernizing their current business processes and hardware and software suites for exercising their functions as centralized electric power trade operators on the Union's CEPM, and the costs will be covered where applicable. Following the discussion, four EAEU states confirmed such need.
"A prompt approbation of all documents regulating the functioning of the common electric power market will allow to arrange free electric power trade within the time limits set by the Presidents of the Eurasian Five," noted Vadim Zakrevsky, Director of the EEC Energy Department, summing up the event.
To arrange centralized electric power trade on the common market, the EEC Council should specify the trade operators. It is worth mentioning that Belarus, Kazakhstan and Russia have already offered their trading platforms to operate on the EAEU common electric power market. They are Belarusian Universal Commodity Exchange, Kazakhstan Electricity and Power Market Operator, Saint Petersburg International Mercantile Exchange and the Russian Administrator of the Trading System. The draft EEC Council disposition has been prepared, approved by the EAEU Ministers of Energy and forwarded to the EAEU governing bodies for consideration.
