The Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine by resolution No. 659 of June 29 has extended the current mechanism of public service obligations (PSO) to provide electricity to the population and kept the current price for household consumers at UAH 1.68/kWh until August 1, 2021.

The document, in particular, amended Cabinet resolution No. 483 dated June 5, 2019 on approval of the regulation on imposing special obligations on electricity market participants to ensure public interest in the process of the electricity market functioning.

As reported, the Ministry of Energy initiated the extension of PSO to provide electricity to the population until August 1, citing the need for additional time to properly calculate the financial stability model of PSO participants to ensure a long-term sustainable effect.

According to the Ministry of Energy, in order to implement the tasks of the new PSO project, which are to protect socially vulnerable consumers and provide generation opportunities for stable operation and modernization, it is necessary to determine the exact amount of funds that the market requires.

To this end, the Ministry of Energy proposes, in particular, to be guided by the results of measures to stabilize the market expected in the first half of July, already taken by the energy regulator and planned for adoption in the near future.

As reported, in mid-June, Energy Minister Herman Haluschenko announced the presentation of a draft of a new model for imposing PSO to provide electricity to the population until the end of June.

At the same time, the minister noted that for the population consuming the volume of electricity up to 100 kWh, the price will be lower than the current tariff (UAH 1.68/kWh), while specifying that 16 million households (or 40% of household consumers) consume up to 100 kWh.