Cancellation of power outage schedules currently impossible due to daily shelling - Ministry of Energy
Due to daily shelling by the Russian Federation and a decrease in network capacity, canceling consumer outage schedules is currently not possible, Acting Minister of Energy of Ukraine Artem Nekrasov said at a morning briefing on Thursday.
"The energy system is currently being balanced at the expense of all available generation, electricity imports and the application of restriction schedules by regions," he said.
According to the head of the Ministry of Energy, an additional 800 MW of electrical capacity is expected to be released in the near future, which will be redistributed among consumers. To this end, a working group under the Ministry of Energy has submitted to regional military administrations lists of facilities that are not critical and should be transferred to general outage schedules.
As Nekrasov noted, the government is also focusing on the development of distributed generation. An additional 300 MW of capacity is expected to be introduced by the end of the year. In addition, households and businesses have already installed solar power plants with a total capacity of about 1 GW. Currently, the programs "Affordable Loans 5-7-9" and the state support program "Energy Independence of Individuals - Household Owners" continue to operate for citizens.
"Today, our primary task is to preserve and create conditions for strengthening the Ukrainian energy system. And all measures taken are aimed at achieving this goal," the acting minister emphasized.
According to the National Power Company (NPC) Ukrenergo, on December 18, as a result of previous massive attacks by the Russian Federation on the energy system, consumption restriction measures are applied in most regions of Ukraine: capacity restriction schedules for industrial consumers and businesses and hourly outages.