21.03.2025
“Today we need to focus on what needs to be changed and what needs to be done first. Tell me, please, are we still planning to buy reactors in Bulgaria for 700 million in the near future? Have we stopped this process or will we spend such money in the very, very distant future, given our state of the energy sector? Do we continue to spend money on power units, on construction work, design work, and inspections? Have we stopped the senseless construction of protective structures at energy facilities that we did not need? Have we stopped and analyzed what we really need? Because if, in terms of electricity last winter, we were, I would say, more or less balanced due to imports and existing generation, then in terms of gas, we already know that 13 billion cubic meters in storage is not enough.”
Such acute issues were raised in his speech by Ivan Plachkov, Chairman of the All-Ukrainian Energy Assembly, Minister of Energy of Ukraine (1999), Minister of Fuel and Energy of Ukraine (2005-2006), participating in the talk show Energy Freedom March 7. At the online meeting, invited Energy Club experts held a dialogue about the results of the 2024/2025 winter, challenges, recovery, prospects for development and preparation for the next winter.
«It is very difficult to summarize the heating season, because the energy sector prepared and worked well, but the unprecedented number of massive attacks and damage, the destruction of energy facilities led to a reduction in supplies to consumers, to emergency and fan outages. Unfortunately, attacks on the energy sector are intensifying, and today we need to think about how we will get through the spring, and especially the summer period. It will be no less difficult, especially if attacks and destruction continue on such a scale as, for example, in the Southern region in Odessa,” Ivan Plachkov emphasized and highlighted the priority tasks:
«Now we need to focus, firstly, on facilities that can be quickly restored – both from the distribution and especially power units, thermal power plants.
Secondly, we need to focus as much as possible on Ukrhydroenergo, on hydroelectric power plants, where damaged equipment needs to be restored and, if possible, generation increased. We can make it to the next heating season.
And the third step is reforming the energy market, adapting it to European standards, because we are already working with a family of European energy companies. And we also need to deal with the tariff policy, make the tariffs adequate or economically justified so that we do not have distortions and the market works normally.
We need to understand the situation, secure funding, and do our best to successfully complete the summer period.»
