Akhmetov earned a billion UAH in March on the scheme for buying electricity from Energoatom – media

Energoatom's traders submitted bids for the sale of electricity at a high price – higher than other sellers. As a result, about 35-40% of their volumes were not accepted and "fell through" to the balancing market, where they were bought by DTEK's generation.

Rinat Akhmetov's company bought this electricity for UAH 0.01 per megawatt-hour and then sold it to consumers at the market price of about UAH 3,000/MWh.

Source. Serhiy Holovniov in his article "How Akhmetov earned a billion hryvnias from Energoatom in March alone".

"On the one hand, we have a classic monopoly collusion between two companies – the largest seller and the largest buyer. On the other hand, we have deliberate damage to Energoatom by its traders to maintain a high price on the market. DTEK, which is the largest electricity supplier in the country through D.Trading for large consumers and universal service providers for small consumers and the population, desperately needs a high price," the article says.

According to the journalist's calculations, in March alone, when the volume of unaccepted resources on the balancing market was the highest, Energoatom lost about a billion hryvnias, which DTEK earned. A side effect of this scheme was to maintain high electricity prices even during surplus hours.

"Obviously, such a scheme could not take place without at least tacit approval from the state's industry leaders. Among them are Energy Minister Herman Halushchenko, who previously worked at Energoatom as a deputy to the current president Petro Kotin, Chairman of the National Energy Regulatory Commission Kostiantyn Ushchapovskyi, and the industry's curator in the Presidential Office, Deputy Head of the Presidential Administration Rostyslav Shurma," the article says.