07.11.2024
An expert discussion was held on the topic: “Sustainability of heat supply of facilities in the autumn-winter period 2024/2025”. The event was organized by the Energy Club community in partnership with the Ministry of Development of Communities and Territories of Ukraine.
The event was held in an online format. It was attended by more than 300 participants, including people’s deputies, experts, representatives of relevant departments, central and local authorities, local governments and municipal enterprises.
Among the key topics of discussion:
In his opening remarks, Valeriy Bezus drew attention to the fact that the successful passage of the winter will be largely influenced by Russian attacks on Ukraine’s critical infrastructure. However, at the state and local levels, it is necessary to respond promptly to the situation with heat supply and do everything necessary to sustainably provide communities with heat.
Member of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Energy and Housing and Communal Services, Chairman of the Subcommittee on Centralized Water Supply, Sewerage, Heat Production and Heat Supply Yevhen Pivovarov noted that Ukraine has lost more than 9 GW of capacity, which significantly affects its capabilities. Despite this, the heating and power utilities are doing everything to ensure stable heat supply to consumers.
“We also understand that the country is working on protection systems. Ideally, both power and heat generation should be protected by air defense systems. In general, it is clear that the state, despite the third year of the war, has a socially oriented tariff policy. The PSO regime has been introduced and tariffs for energy and heat supply have been fixed. That is, the country protects our consumer. This is our priority,” Yevhen Pivovarov emphasized.During the discussion, the people’s deputy also drew attention to the fact that communities should now focus their work on decentralizing heat and energy supply.
The Head of the Department of Public Utilities of the Ministry of Community and Territorial Development of Ukraine, Natalia Khotsyanivska, spoke about the beginning of the heating season. As of November 4, it has already started in all regions, except for the Kherson region. This is due to the air temperature.
“The 2024/2025 heating season, according to all forecasts, may be one of the most difficult in the history of Ukraine. With constant shelling of our country’s critical infrastructure and periodic power outages, each community, each region must have a specific plan and algorithm of actions in the event of partial or even complete destruction of the energy infrastructure. Today, together with the Ministry of Energy and regional military administrations, we are working on creating a plan for the internal capacity and sustainability of the energy sector of Ukraine,” emphasized Natalia Khotsyanivska. 14,883 boiler houses have been put into operation, which is 82.6% of the total. 50,497 residential buildings (69.9% of the total) and 21,584 socio-cultural facilities (82.4% of the total) are heated. The Ministry conducts daily monitoring of the progress of the heating season of 2024/25.
People’s Deputy of Ukraine Oleksiy Kucherenko noted that debts have become a major problem in the heating and utility sector at the moment.
“In my opinion, there is a colossal amount of the existing difference in tariffs. Now, in the temporary investigative commission on the formation of prices for energy carriers and utility tariffs, which was created a few days ago, one of the key priorities is to investigate the causes and nature of such colossal debts that break the entire financial and economic model of the industry. And they are also holding local budgets, municipal authorities, and heating and utility companies hostage,” the MP believes. The MP also drew attention to the fact that a meeting will be held in the near future. with the Deputy Prime Minister – Minister of Community and Territorial Development Oleksiy Kuleba, during which priorities and cooperation in the field of heat supply will be discussed.
Deputy Director of the Department for Regulation of Relations in the Field of Heat Supply of the National Commission for State Regulation in the Fields of Energy and Utilities Yevhen Lyulevych noted that changes have already been made to the legislation on tariffs for cogeneration units. These changes came into force in early October 2024.
Head of the group of technical experts of the Office for Coordination of Recovery Projects under the Ministry of Community and Territorial Development Anton Buyar drew attention to the importance of introducing distributed generation. Such steps allow communities to remain warm and light even after Russian attacks.
“The pilot city in which distributed generation began to be introduced this year was Kharkiv, which is experiencing perhaps the greatest shelling from Russia. A scheme for distributed generation and decentralization of the city’s heat supply was developed. We also determined the capacity of energy equipment needed in the city. And then, appropriate work was carried out with international partners. In the future, this experience will be extended to all cities of Ukraine. The international community is quite actively helping our country in supplying energy equipment, so I want to recommend that cities not be passive and make every effort to increase the energy sustainability of our cities and the country,” Anton Buyar emphasized.
Representatives of the regions also spoke about the situation on the ground. In particular, Deputy Mayor of Odessa Hanna Pozniakova noted that the city has already formed a reserve of alternative energy sources, as well as fuel and lubricants. However, the problem for the city remains the difference in tariffs, the lack of compensation and personal income tax in the budget.
Deputy Mayor of Ternopil Vladyslav Stemkivskyi drew attention to the fact that the city is technically ready for the heating season, and work on cogeneration is ongoing. However, Ternopil’s financial situation is critical due to the debt on tariffs.
The director of the Cherkasy City Municipal Enterprise “Cherkasyteplokomunenergo” Pavlo Karas stated that Cherkasy is ready for the heating season: the city is provided with electricity sources, and emergency action plans have been developed.
However, in his opinion, it is necessary to introduce a free tariff and liberalize the district heating system.
“I will give an example from Cherkasy. Today, 2.4% of residents receive a subsidy. This is several times less than in the EU. On average, about 10% of households in the EU receive a subsidy. The situation with the tariff is a problem. “In my opinion, there is only one way to solve it – to understand whether heat supply is a business or a social service,” says Pavlo Karas.
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