14:32 02.12.2022

Heads of DSOs to bear personal responsibility for abuses during blackouts – Energy Ministry

2 min read
Heads of DSOs to bear personal responsibility for abuses during blackouts – Energy Ministry

Heads of distribution system operators (DSOs) will bear personal responsibility in case of non-compliance with the principle of equality of consumers during forced outages, Energy Minister Herman Haluschenko said at a meeting on the problems of blackouts at the Energy Ministry.

"In the event of a power outage, the DSO should be guided by a fair approach so that all consumers are on an equal footing. If facts of abuse are established, company executives will be personally liable," Haluschenko said on Friday.

He said last week the number of complaints from consumers about non-compliance with schedules and unfairness in the order of outages has doubled.

"The analysis that the Energy Ministry conducted jointly with the NEURC and the Energy Regulatory Office shows that the dissatisfaction of citizens is justified. Among the regions from which the largest number of complaints are received are Kyiv, Kyiv region, Poltava and Lviv," the minister said.

The meeting was also attended by Deputy Head of the President's Office of Ukraine Rostyslav Shurma, Chairman of the National Commission for State Regulation of Energy and Public Utilities Kostiantyn Uschapovsky, as well as heads of the State Inspectorate for Energy Supervision of Ukraine, NPC Ukrenergo and distribution system operators.

"NEURC Chairman Kostiantyn Uschapovsky at the meeting emphasized that the commission introduces personal responsibility of the leaders of the SRO for failure to comply with regulatory documents on the introduction of consumption restrictions," according to the website.

According to the head of the NEURC, the regulator receives a significant part of complaints about improper communication between the DSO and consumers, in particular, failure to provide information about the shutdown, their volume and the relevance of the schedules.

"This situation must be urgently corrected. The commission also draws the attention of the DSO to the need to take into account meter readings and apply a reduction factor when billing consumers for average consumption in November," Uschapovsky said.

In turn, as Shurma said at the meeting, the observance of fairness in providing consumers with electricity, as well as the healing of critical infrastructure facilities, is a matter of national security, which is controlled at the highest state level and must be strictly observed.

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