According to the new Law on the Electricity Market and the Distribution System Code, all Ukrainian power supply companies shall make their power grid maps (geoinformation data) public starting from January 1, 2019. DTEK Kyiv Grids was one of the first companies in Ukraine to comply with this requirement – as early as in June 2018.
Using the geoinformation system (GIS), clients can get online information on the location, voltage level, length of the overhead lines, addresses and names of transformer substations, the capacity of distribution substations, the distance from the land plot to the point of connection to the grid, the cost of connection, and more. The GIS functionality will be further developed and expanded in accordance with the requirements of the Law and for the ease of use by the company’s clients.
‘We agree that the connection procedure has been accompanied by a lot of difficulties for many years. Today we are systematically working to make it simple and transparent for the clients. We have already published a map showing the power transmission lines and substations operating in Kyiv with data on their capacity. This will let the consumers calculate the cost of connection by themselves, and potential investors will be able to evaluate the investment attractiveness of the facility. At the same time, we are working on a similar service for the clients in Dnipro and the Dnipropetrovsk Oblast,’ commented Ivan Gelyukh, DTEK Grids CEO.
‘Disclosure of information on the company’s grids makes the monopoly transparent and allows businesses to form the optimum investment project. I welcome such initiatives and believe that they will help Ukraine to gain in the Doing Business ranking,’ said Maxim Nefedov, Deputy Minister of Economic Development and Trade of Ukraine.
‘For many countries, open data on the possibility of connection to infrastructure grids is not new. However, until recently, data on connection to grids in Ukraine were just lists of transformer substations, updated occasionally. That’s why, thanks to the support of the people’s deputies, our proposals on open data are introduced at the legislative level, and the first power supply companies, such as DTEK Grids, are already making this information available to all. Not only consumers benefit from it, but the companies themselves as well, for they become closer to the consumer by implementing the best world practices,’ commented Aleksey Goncharuk, head of BRDO.
The Ministry of Economic Development and the BRDO stress it that it is the simplicity and transparency of the terms of connection to grids that are important indicators when assessing the country’s investment attractiveness according to the Doing Business ranking. According to the Ministry of Economic Development, last year Ukraine gained four places and took 76th place in Doing Business 2018, and it was, to a certain extent, due to the decrease in the cost of connection of electrical plants to the grids of KYIVENERGO (now DTEK Kyiv Grids).
