The Energy Committee of the Rada recommends to adopt amendments to the legislation on booking capacities for wind power generation

The Verkhovna Rada Committee on Energy, Housing and Utilities has recommended adopting in the first reading draft law No. 11392 on simplification of economic activity.

According to Energoreforma, the draft law was registered in the Parliament on July 2. It provides for a number of innovations related to grid connection, wind generation, creation of geographic information systems about all networks, etc.

In particular, it is proposed to expand the ability of the customer to connect to the grid to independently build the necessary infrastructure.

“In fact, the connection customer is granted the right to be a contractor of the DSO and perform work on the station component, while the line component can still be provided independently,” explained Andriy Gerus, chairman of the committee and author of the draft law.

The draft law also provides for the creation of a single, transparent database of their facilities by transmission and distribution system operators so that it is clear which substation has free capacity. Such geographic information systems are also proposed to be created for gas, heating, water supply and sewage networks.

In addition, the draft law proposes to allow wind power plants with a capacity of 20 MW or more to book capacity in advance, “when there is no land plot yet”. To do this, it will be necessary to open a deposit, the funds from which will be used to pay for grid connection. Gerus explained that in this way, investors will be able to simultaneously deal with both land registration and preparation for construction, and the deposit will encourage the use of the issued technical specifications.

The draft law also regulates the issue of standard connection, defining this concept as a voltage class of 0.4 kV. At the same time, it is proposed to remove the provision on the abolition of the status of an active consumer whose generating facilities of more than 1 MW have supplied more than half of its total consumption to the grid. It is also proposed not to limit the range of consumers covered by the self-generation mechanism to consumers of electricity from alternative sources.