Experts discussed the risks of the upcoming heating season and provided advice to consumers
Russian aggression creates unprecedented challenges for Ukraine’s energy system. How to help the country get through the winter, how to choose a backup source of energy and protect home power networks, and in general, is Ukraine ready for all possible risks of this heating season? Answers to these questions were provided by experts during a webinar on 27 October organized by the team of the DiXi Group think tank. The discussion involved representatives of the Ministry for Communities and Territories Development of Ukraine, the National Commission for State Regulation of Energy and Public Utilities, the State Inspectorate for Energy Supervision of Ukraine, as well as the public, business and media.
Andrii Vedmid, Head of Utilities and Utility Services Department of the Ministry for Communities and Territories Development of Ukraine, during his speech at the webinar, provided current statistics on the destruction of the heat supply infrastructure: 13 CHPPs , 6 TPPs, 437 boiler houses and 128 central heating points. At the same time, out of these hundreds of boiler houses, only a small part is seriously damaged, and most of the destruction is minor damage to windows, doors or walls.
“The risk of damage and readiness are not the same thing. We physically prepared the house, and something hit it just before winter. It went from 100% ready to completely not ready. No one excludes such moments,” added the representative of the Ministry for Communities and Territories Development.
Andrii Vedmid also gave advice to residents of multi-apartment buildings in case of interruptions with centralized heat supply: all residents of the apartment should stay in one room, insulate it as much as possible and keep in touch with the house manager about the state of the utilities.
It is worth bearing in mind state mechanisms for consumer protection: unchanged heat tariffs, a ban on the charging of fines or other penalties for late payment of utility bills as well as a ban on disconnecting consumers from services due to debts. Nataliia Kravchenko, Head of Economics of Life Support Systems Department of the Ministry for Communities and Territories Development, reminded about such decisions of the authorities.
Ukrainians should determine which energy resource they depend on the most and come up with plan B in case of a crisis.
“Today, we cannot be exclusively engineers/doctors/representatives of another speciality. Unfortunately, we have to be conscious in different processes. Currently, schedules are our life, our survival and our response to the enemy. In fact, the energy front passes through our automatic breakers and meters,” stated Anatolii Zamulko, Deputy Head of the State Inspectorate for Energy Supervision of Ukraine.
In the event the crisis drags on, the government is preparing heating points in every settlement with the help of its partners.
We remind you that DiXi Group has prepared advice for consumers “How to survive force majeure outages”.
Webinar video “Risks of the heating season: what should consumers do”
The event took place in the framework of the USAID Energy Sector Transparency project implemented by NGO DiXi Group. It became possible with the support of the American people through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).
The views expressed by participants in the discussion are the sole responsibility of the DiXi Group and do not necessarily reflect the views of USAID or the United States Government.
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