NEURC Responds to Energy Club’s Appeal: Declaring an Emergency in the Power System is the Exclusive Competence of "Ukrenergo"

04.03.2026

Energy Club has received an official response from the National Commission for State Regulation of Energy and Utilities (NEURC) to its recent appeal regarding the need to harmonize market rules with the actual state of the energy system. As a reminder, the business community previously called on the Regulator to resolve the issue of unfair penalties for imbalances. Due to forced power outages and the emergency operating mode of the system, suppliers are suffering colossal losses, yet the market continues to function under “peacetime” rules because an emergency is not officially recorded.

In its response letter, the NEURC clearly explained that the authority to introduce an emergency mode (including for market settlements) does not fall within the Regulator’s competence.

Key points from the NEURC response:

• In accordance with the Law of Ukraine “On the Electricity Market” and the Transmission System Code (TSC), the function of initiating, classifying, recording, and declaring an emergency in the Integrated Power System (IPS) of Ukraine is assigned exclusively to the Transmission System Operator — NPC Ukrenergo.
• The Regulator recalled that NEURC Resolution No. 332 already provides a special algorithm to protect market participants. If Ukrenergo officially declares an emergency (for example, due to a loss of more than 50% of consumption), then for the calculation of the imbalance fee on such days, the arithmetic mean price of the “day-ahead” market for the previous 30 days, when the system was operating stably, should be used instead of the current price.
• Since the definition of emergency criteria and the direct declaration of an emergency belong to the competence of NPC Ukrenergo, the Regulator recommended that the business community address this issue directly to the system operator.

Energy Club’s Position:
The regulatory framework contains mechanisms for fair settlements during crisis periods, but the key to launching them is in the hands of NPC Ukrenergo. The main problem is that this protective mechanism is not being activated: the system operator regularly applies restriction schedules but de facto does not procedurally record an emergency mode.

Energy Club continues to systematically advocate for the interests of the energy business and will keep community members informed of further steps.