OREANDA-NEWS. October 11, 2013. FAS and OECD Regional Competition Center in Hungary had the final day of a joint workshop on “Developing Competition on the Electric Power Market”, which took place at the Resource-and-Training Centre of the Federal Antimonopoly Service in Kazan.

The first presentation was made by Deputy Head of FAS Department for Control over Electric Power Industry, Dmitry Vasiliev, on price manipulation in the market of electric power industry.

The speaker talked about the structure, functioning and specifics of the wholesale market of electric power and capacity in Russia. “Electric power has certain specifics due to its physical properties that must be taken into account when organizing the market. Trading with electric power in Russia is based on regulated and free contracts, day-ahead market and balancing market”, said Dmitry Vasiliev, and then explained each principle in detail, and touched upon the basics of trading with electric capacity.

The speaker also did not neglect pricing on the market of electric power and capacity. “Prices for electric power must not be too high or too low – both constitute violations of the antimonopoly law. Prices must be formed through competitive market relations and reflect the balance between demand and supply”, emphasized FAS representative.

At the end of his presentation, Dmitry Vasiliev discussed FAS powers in the markets of electric power and capacity, and shared experience of the antimonopoly authority in investigations of violations of the competition law in the part of price manipulation on the markets of electric power, giving the most striking examples of investigated cases.

Expert community showed a considerable interest to the presentation, which started a broad discussion about the positions of different states with regard to the principles of market relations in the electric power industry.

Deputy Head of the Second Directorate for Enquiries and Investigations, the Head of the Department for Oil and Oil Products of Ukraine’s Antimonopoly Committee, Vladislav Dutka presented a situational analysis for Ukraine.

Gabor Szabo, representing Hungary’s competition authority, demonstrated an interesting example of a case against a Hungarian operator of electric power transmission system.

Edwin Edelenbos from the Netherlands’ competition authority presented the final report on “Competition and Development of the Energy System on the Market of Electric Power in the Netherlands”.

“The wholesale market of electric power in the Netherlands in free. Competition on the market is determined in accordance with the general Competition Act; however, the regulator has to deal with some sector-specific tasks such as facilitating regional market integration, monitoring the situation on the market and ensuring transparency of relations on the market.

As for retail trade, now the Netherlands have more than 40 suppliers of electric power. After the market was liberalized, none of new companies has gained a significant market share.

The Netherlands pay considerable attention to smart networks. Edwin Edelenbos emphasized that “Smart networks of electric power supply are the key element of a system enabling to line up the interests and expectations of all market participants”.

Smart network is an electric network which is able to integrate conduct and actions of all consumes without considerable costs in order to form economically efficient system of supplying power at low costs, high quality and reliability of supplies and ensure their security.

The standards of rational use of natural resources go hand-in-hand with other conditions typical for the system. At the same time, availability and reliability of supplies constitute important goals of the energy sector in the Netherlands.

“Market regulation must facilitate system development in the desired direction and must not stimulate adopting special decisions”, added Edwin Edelenbos.

Deputy Head of FAS Anatoly Golomolzin summed up the results of the 3-day workshop: “It is nice that despite different countries and economies all of us have approximately similar vision of the prospects of competition development. Competition undoubtedly generates many benefits for consumers, and the tasks that we set to ourselves certainly facilitate its development. We all received a lot of useful information and will do everything possible to further develop our communication. A special thank you to all participants for the warm and pleasant atmosphere, which distinguished the workshop”.