The Romanian Energy Regulation Authority will double the tariff applied to all electricity imports, exports, and transits with the neighboring non-EU states of Moldova and Ukraine. The tariff will be increased from EUR 0.714/MWh to EUR 1.428/MWh, including VAT, according to Profit.ro.

The European Network of Transmission System Operators for Electricity (ENTSO-E), which sets the tariffs according to the existing EU legislation, decided to double the tariff to EUR 1.2/MWh in the second part of July.

The hike had the tariff reach its highest level since its establishment in 2009. It had previously varied every year between EUR 0.5 and 0.8 and had never reached the threshold of EUR 1/MWh until this year.

At the end of June, ENTSO-E announced that the preliminary technical conditions had been met to allow commercial exchanges of electricity between Ukraine and the Republic of Moldova and their neighboring EU member states.

On July 29, the commercial exchange capacity between Ukraine/Republic of Moldova and continental Europe was increased from the initial level of 100 MW to 250 MW, with a further increase possible in September.

Since June, the Republic of Moldova and Ukraine have been discussing their integration into the EU mechanism for compensating the costs of hosting cross-border electricity flows with the European authorities. If they're included, the user fee currently applied to them is eliminated.

"Europe actively uses our network for energy transit, and we will receive additional funding. There will be no more export taxes, and we will participate in the common fund whose resources are distributed according to how much energy transits through each network," said Volodymyr Kudrytsky, CEO of Ukraine's national energy system operator, Ukrenergo.

(Photo: Radovan Smokon/ Dreamstime)

radu@romania-insider.com