President Petro Poroshenko signed the Law On the Electricity Market adopted by the Verkhovna Rada in April this year – Ukraine has implemented the requirements of the Third Energy Package of the EU. The law provides for the introduction of a new market model that would include such segments as the market of bilateral contracts, the day-ahead market, the intra-day market, the balancing market and the market of ancillary services. It is expected that the new format will be fully operational starting from 2019.

In the process of this law's drafting, the Ministry of Energy and Coal Industry of Ukraine initiated a broad discussion of provisions of this regulatory document, which involved electricity market players, civil society organizations and independent experts.

Donbassenergo also submitted its proposals subsequently approved by the Council of the WEM. They were meant to strengthen the norms relating to each group of participants in the new market – producers, suppliers, operators and consumers of electricity. In particular, the question was about settling the situation with the investment mark-ups to the electricity tariff, the timing of receiving compensation payments for construction/reconstruction, trading derivatives in the day-ahead market and the intra-day market, commercial accounting of electricity and financial responsibility.