Romania reduces tax on electricity imports and exports to Moldova and Ukraine

The Romanian Energy Regulatory Authority has announced a reduction in the regulated tariff applied by the national energy system operator, Transelectrica, to all electricity import, export and transit transactions planned with the Republic of Moldova and Ukraine, https://www.ipn.md/ reports.Profit.ro reports that, starting with September 2022, the regulated tariff for electricity exchanges with perimeter countries has been massively increased, first from €0.6 to €1.2 per MWh, plus VAT, and then to €3 per MWh, plus VAT. Electricity exchanges with the Republic of Moldova and Ukraine intensified after the two neighboring energy systems separated themselves from Russia’s system and synchronized with the interconnected grid of continental Europe in March 2022, less than a month after the start of the Kremlin’s military aggression.Since last autumn, since the Russian Federation began a series of extremely aggressive methodical attacks on Ukraine’s energy system, resulting in massive damage, Romania’s energy exports to the neighboring country have increased even more, both in terms of commercial deliveries and in the form of emergency aid. Transelectrica in the first quarter of the year collected over 3 million lei from emergency aid granted to Ukraine’s neighboring system, consisting of emergency energy deliveries to its counterpart Ukrenergo, at a time when the Ukrainian energy infrastructure was affected by missile and drone attacks staged by the Russian military aggressor.The quoted source noted that lately, due to the destruction of some of the vital power plants, Ukraine has to import energy from neighbors almost daily. EU rules provide that transmission system operators (TSOs) in the Community area receive compensation for the costs of hosting cross-border electricity flows in their networks, paid by the counterpart system operators from which they originate and where these flows ultimately arrive. To this end, EU TSOs contribute money to a common fund, each contributing proportionally to the ratio of the absolute value of net flows to and from its national transmission system to the sum of the absolute value of net flows to and from all national transmission systems.The compensations cover energy losses related to hosting cross-border electricity flows, as well as the costs incurred by TSOs in providing infrastructure for the purpose of hosting cross-border electricity flows, including investments in strengthening the networks necessary to facilitate such flows. In contrast, third countries, such as the Republic of Moldova and Ukraine, are subject to an EU transmission system utilization charge, set each year at the level of the estimated contribution per megawatt-hour that transmission system operators in an EU country would have to pay to that common fund based on the expected cross-border electricity flows for the given year. Third-party TSOs recover the duty from domestic energy exporters and importers.