On March, 2, the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine supported a draft law on simplification the procedure of standard connection to electricity supply networks developed by the Ministry of Regional Development, Construction, Housing and Communal Services. The Better Regulation Delivery Office (BRDO) together with the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade participated in drafting the law.
However, the approved version of the law will be known when it is adopted by the Cabinet of Ministers’ Secretariat and published.
BRDO experts point out that if the document includes all BRDO propositions, the draft law will allow Ukraine to increase its positions in the World Bank Doing Business index and economize a lot of money for businesses.
In the primary version, it was suggested to optimize the standard connection procedure through introducing a public offer agreement and simplifying requirements for a package of documents, which could be submitted in electronic format.
Also, fines for electric organizations for exceeding the period offered for the connection procedure are being introduced.
Besides, it was proposed to introduce a new category of connection – integrated standard connection. This is connection from 160 kW to 5 MW. Thereby the principle of procedure shortening, its unification and the opportunity of simplified determination of connection costs at these power ranges are being implemented. As the economy of Ukraine grows, the number of requests for connecting to electricity supply networks in this power range can be increased, and the transparent and clearly defined procedure and clear answers to questions “what is the connection cost?” and “what is the term of providing services?” will become the factors of attracting investments. Also, the implementation of this approach will allow excluding the possibility of abusing the monopoly position by electric organizations while issuing technical conditions for the connection.
As for the non-standard connection, when the connection to networks is a serious project decision, it is needed to provide conditions for customer’s possibility to appeal technical conditions issued by an electric organization and engage contractors for design, construction and installation works at a competitive basis.
In case of the correct implementation of incentive tariffs for natural monopolies in the energy sector of Ukraine with compliance with appropriate quality and safety levels of electricity supply (at the European level), the issue of providing services of non-standard connection to electricity supply networks must be additionally addressed.
It is to be reminded, that according to the World Bank Doing Business 2016 index, Ukraine takes the 137th position (in 2015, Ukraine took the 138th position) in terms of “Connection to electricity supply networks”, the period to connect electricity-generating equipment of consumers is 263 days, and the number of procedures that need to be passed through is 5.