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ahead of the 3.4 million average among the 22 countries where the service is currently present. Company officials said activity in Ukraine had grown by more than 150% over the past two years, with 80% of free spaces advertised for trips within Ukraine and 20% to EU destinations including Poland, Germany and the Czech Republic. Based on its success so far in Ukraine, BlaBlaCar now plans to develop a more sophisticated online platform for longer distance trips in the country.
9.1.9 Utilities sector news
Ukraine launched a new electricity market on July 1 . Ending a 23-year monopoly on power sales to state-owned Energorynok, Ukraine’s new electricity market, with 192 buyers and sellers taking part in an electronic auction. The market debut marks the end of the controversial, 3-year-old ‘Rotterdam +’ formula for pricing coal. After the first trading session on the Day Ahead Market, DTEK, the thermal power plant owner, reports the price for its electricity fell to UAH1.569 per kWh, 12% below the average for the first half of this year.
The price of electricity for industrial consumers increased by 22% in just the first two days of operation of the new electricity market, according to Ukraine's largest steel pipe producer Interpipe . The average price of trading in the new electricity market on July 1-2 was UAH1.58 per kWh, which roughly corresponds to the wholesale market price of electricity in June, the company said in a statement on June 3. Ukraine's new electricity market was launched on schedule on July 1. The new model allows power producers to sell electricity by bilateral contracts with consumers, as well as on a day-ahead market, intraday market and balancing market. It replaced the old model, in which all power producers were selling their electricity to a single buyer. "At the same time, the tariff on transmission for Ukrenergo, which was included in the wholesale electricity price prior to July 1, should be added to this price. Now this service should be paid for separately by consumers," Interpipe added. According to new government regulations, this tariff is 34.74 kopecks/kWh (excluding VAT). Thus, industrial consumers' expenses for electricity grew by 22%, taking into account the transmission tariff, while the total price of electricity amounted to about UAH1.93 per kWh. The company added that four segments should have provided the work of the new market from July 1. Specifically, a long-term contract market, a day-ahead market, an intraday market, and a balancing market. However, at the time of launching the market, only one segment worked - the day-ahead market, and a day later the balancing market started working. The market of long-term contracts is still not fully working for all participants in the energy market, news agency Interfax reported on July 3.
The reforms to the electricity market may mean higher household electricity bills . By ending Energorynok’s monopoly on buying and selling electricity on the wholesale market, the new system ends ‘cross-subsidization’ -- where high industry rates kept household rates low. The Ukrainian Institute for the Future estimates household rates will increase by 28% this year and by another 84% in 2020. For industrial consumers, tariffs will increase by 45% this year, followed by a slight decrease of 5% in 2020. According to Eurostat, Ukraine has lowest electricity prices in Europe. In the second half of 2018 – Ukrainians paid 4 euro cents the kilowatt hour, compared to 10 in Moldova, 13 in Romania, 14 in Poland, and an average of 21 across the EU-28.
58 UKRAINE Country Report August 2019 www.intellinews.com