January 14 (SeeNews) - Bulgaria will seek ways to boost power supplies by the state-owned electricity producers to the day-ahead market of the Independent Bulgarian Electricity Exchange (IBEX) in an attempt to stabilise the market, the energy ministry said on Monday.
The exact volumes of additional electricity that each state-owned power producer can provide for trade on the IBEX is yet to be determined, energy minister Temenuzhka Petkova said after a meeting of the heads of the three power distribution companies in the country, the state-owned power producers and their parent company - the Bulgarian Energy Holding, IBEX and the Electricity System Operator, according to a statement issued by the energy ministry.
The state-owned National Electricity Company, Kozloduy nuclear power plant and Maritsa East 2 thermal power plant, currently obliged to provide 690 MWh hourly for trade on the IBEX day-ahead segment, will have to increase this amount to over 700 MWh as of January 19, Petkova said.
The increase, she said, would increase liquidity and ensure higher predictability on the market.
As another step towards reducing demand risks on the market, the power distributors should propose within a week new standardised products for trade on IBEX which would diversify trade.
The process of coupling IBEX with other power exchanges in the region should be accelerated on order to increase the stability of the market, with talks with the power exchanges of Macedonia and Romania currently being in the most advanced stage, IBEX executive director Konstantin Konstantinov said, as quoted in the statement. Concrete results are expected in a few months.
On Friday, the Bulgarian authorities launched joint checks of the local power distribution units of Austria's EVN and Czech companies CEZ and Energo-Pro in response to concerns of local businesses over a sharp rise in electricity prices.
A joint team of the energy ministry and the energy regulator will check between January 15 and 21 whether Power Distribution North, a unit of Energo-Pro, Power Distribution South, part of EVN, and CEZ Distribution Bulgaria [BUL:3CZ], majority owned by CEZ, are meeting their licence requirements, the energy ministry said in a statement on Friday.
At present the power distribution companies are buying the electricity they need to cover technological losses from the day-ahead market, with these volumes reaching up to 30% of the energy traded on this segment of the IBEX.
The average base prices of the day-ahead market of the IBEX have been rising since the start of 2019. They peaked at 183.6 levs ($107.6/93.8 euro) per MWh on Thursday and stood at 141.2 levs on Monday, IBEX data shows.
(1 euro = 1.95583 Bulgarian levs)
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