24.03.2025
The heating season has ended for citizens, but not for energy professionals, who will be able to specifically report on the results of the autumn-winter period in mid-April. There were a lot of internal and external forecasts, most of them were frightening, but, fortunately, they did not come true – the apocalypse did not happen to a large extent thanks to the professionalism of energy professionals. After all, the heating season of 2024-2025 was distinguished precisely by the fact that attacks on gas infrastructure were regular.
«It is time to liberalize the energy sector. This can definitely be said about the electricity and gas sectors, because we can no longer afford to think and make decisions that were relevant and correct enough at the beginning of the war. The situation has changed, we have to think long-term and plan the next heating season. We don’t know what will happen in six months, in a year, but we have to prepare for all options, that’s what energy professionals usually do. Therefore, market liberalization is the first issue, because we see that during peak hours we cannot attract imports. And this is an abnormal situation caused by regulatory restrictions.
The second issue is that we should not delay with certain regulatory decisions that allow for the construction of generation.
And the third factor is that we need to change approaches. There is already news that the mechanism for imposing special obligations for the supply of electricity for the needs of the population (PSO) will be changed in the gas industry. This PSO will probably include Ukrnafta, which means that prices will change,” said Yaryna Skorokhod, co-chair of the Energy Committee of the European Business Association, on the Energy Freedom talk show, which took place online on March 7. At the event, experts discussed the results of the 2024/2025 winter, challenges, recovery and prospects for the development of the energy industry.
“In our opinion, we need to develop a comprehensive strategy for how we will prepare for the next heating season from the point of view of gas generation and cooperation with Europe. Although we do not really expect these prices to be favorable, low, that is, we understand that we will also compete for this resource,” added Yaryna Skorokhod.
