Cabinet instructs Energy Ministry and Ukrenergo to develop fair power outage schedules

The Cabinet of Ministers instructed the Ministry of Energy and the Ukrenergo national energy company to develop a draft of the government's resolution on fair blackout schedules for consumers.

This was announced by Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal during the government meeting on May 21, the Ukrainian News agency reports.

"This document should also contain a list of objects of critical importance to the state that require a priority power supply and the order of distribution of the maximum capacity among other consumers who are not included in the list of critical importance," he noted.

At the same time, according to Shmyhal, the state continues to provide critical infrastructure with alternative means of generation.

"Special attention is given to ensuring autonomous power supply of educational institutions. This especially applies to vocational schools, where it is important to continue offline training. We currently have 1,417 generators at 606 vocational schools. The task of the Ministry of Education and Culture and local authorities is to provide the necessary resources for the operation of these generators," Shmyhal emphasized.

He emphasized that the situation in the energy industry is difficult; as a result of russian shelling, 8 GW of power was lost.

"Due to a significant deficit, Ukraine continues to import electricity from Europe at record levels. But the maximum technical possibility of import is 1.7 GW. That is, imports do not allow to cover losses from russian terror. Therefore, Ukrenergo is forced to resort to hourly electricity blackouts for businesses and citizens," said Shmyhal.

As the Ukrainian News agency earlier reported, the Cabinet of Ministers expects to significantly decentralize the energy system during the second half of 2024.