A decision to raise the electricity tariff will be made by the end of May. This was stated by the Minister of Energy of Ukraine Herman Galushchenko in the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine during an hour of questions to the government.
“This issue is under consideration. Today we are making final calculations. The decision will be made in the next week, that is, by the end of May,” he emphasized.
According to him, the decision will take into account the amount of electricity consumption.
“We are considering a differentiated approach. I don't think we will simply change one tariff for another. There will be a differentiation depending on the volume of electricity consumption,” Galushchenko emphasized.
He noted that the current level of tariffs, especially given the destruction of the power system due to enemy shelling, does not even cover the cost of production.
Answering a question about how long the planned power outage will last, Galushchenko said it depends on several factors.
“As a result of the attacks on the power system since March 22, we have lost more than 8 gigawatts of generating capacity in the system. This is a huge amount,” he said.
According to the minister, everything will now depend on how quickly the lost capacities are restored and on the impact of new Russian attacks on the Ukrainian power system.
“The issue of blackouts or not will depend on how we manage to restore all the lost generation. Let's be frank about it: it will also depend on the level of the next enemy attacks. We know that they will be, that they are planning to attack our power system. And everything will depend on the impact of these attacks on the Ukrainian energy system. Therefore, it is difficult to predict the consequences now. Let's hope that they will be minimal, and the answer to this question will depend on that,” Galushchenko emphasized.