BALANCER GROUPS ECONOMIC EFFECTIVENESS ON THE NATURAL GAS MARKET RESEARCH
Authors:   Kharkiv National University of Radio Electronics, Marchenko Roman , Herasimov Tymofii ,   National Technical University of Ukraine "Igor Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute", Kyrii Valentyna ,   Kharkiv National University of Radio Electronics
Published: May 2024

In the circumstances of the Ukrainian natural gas market crisis, companies engaged in the wholesale and retail of natural gas confronted with the following challenges: debts for payment of natural gas supplied, decrease in business profitability. At the same time, expenses for wages, office rent, payment of utilities and other operating expenses remain constant. Therefore, the search for ways to reduce the losses of the enterprise that supplies energy resources is important for the stable operation of the enterprise and the economy of Ukraine as a whole. One of them minimizing imbalances. Accurate forecasting and planning play a pivotal role in minimizing imbalances. Utilizing advanced forecasting tools and methodologies enables suppliers to predict consumption patterns more precisely, thus reducing the need for costly imbalance coverages. Offering flexible contract terms to customers allows suppliers to adjust supply according to demand fluctuations more efficiently, mitigating the impact of imbalances. Moreover, some suppliers provide balancing services to assist smaller participants in managing their imbalances effectively. By pooling resources and optimizing operations across multiple participants, overall costs associated with imbalance coverage can be minimized. Integration of advanced technologies, such as real-time monitoring, data analytics, and automation, enhances operational efficiency and enables faster response to imbalances, thereby reducing associated costs. Losses on commercial balancing can now be up to 26% of the margin. The work reveals how natural gas supplier companies lose money due to imbalances and analyzed losses during self-balancing of companies with different supply volumes. Joining a balancing group to reduce losses to cover imbalances is considered. Different options of balancing groups are modeled and analyzed depending on the number of participants, their supply capacities, and the possibility of savings for each option of the balancing group is demonstrated. An analysis of balancing losses for each individual company revealed a significant difference in balancing losses. An assumption is made about the importance of self-balancing. The possibility of reducing losses on imbalances up to 79%, provided that the group has from two to six participants, compared to balancing without a balancing group, has been demonstrated. Which in the context of marginality gives a reduction in margin losses from 20,98% to 4,50%. Which is a 4,66 times reduction in balancing losses. It has been confirmed that participation in a balancing group is appropriate for any two or more participants, provided that there are two participants in the group, then joining the balancing group allows you to reduce commercial balancing losses by up to 90%, depending on the number of participants in the balancing group, the volume of their supplies and balancing qualities.