Rising electricity tariffs will not save Ukraine from power outages, and new legislative initiatives are aimed at covering debts to owners of private solar and wind farms rather than repairing the grid. The narrative that increasing prices will help restore the energy system is a large-scale manipulation hiding a scheme to shift financial risks from businesses to citizens.
As reported by Hvylya, this statement was made by Oleg Popenko, head of the Union of Consumers of Communal Services. The expert provided a detailed breakdown of the arguments used by lobbyists for price hikes and analyzed Bill No. 13219, recently passed by the Verkhovna Rada, which he believes repeats controversial schemes from the Petro Poroshenko era.
Popenko categorically rejects the link between low tariffs and blackouts. According to him, outages occur due to the physical destruction of generation and transmission facilities by Russian missiles, not a lack of funds. He cited Energoatom as an example, noting that it earned a 700% excess profit in the market in January, yet this had no impact on the availability of electricity. Furthermore, the expert emphasized the absurdity of the idea that the population should invest in the restoration of private or state monopolies through tariffs.
"We are not the owners of DTEK or Centrenergo generation... We do not own the Ukrenergo transmission system or, God forbid, Energoatom. We cannot pay to restore what does not belong to us. The electricity bill is an additional tax taken from us, but it is not an investment tool," Popenko explained.
The analyst paid special attention to Bill No. 13219, which provides for the payment of approximately 37 billion UAH in debts to "green" energy producers. Popenko claims the law is drafted so that the state (via the Guaranteed Buyer company) compensates private plants for any price differences, removing all risks from the businesses.
Although the law does not explicitly state that the public will pay, the mechanism for implementing this compensation is long-established. Funds to cover debts to "green" producers are drawn from Ukrenergo's electricity transmission tariff.
"Ukrenergo's tariff increased by 100% between 2022 and 2024. The hike in electricity tariffs for the population will compensate payments to green energy producers. In other words, while it isn't written in the bill itself, the mechanisms the state has always used... have always been compensated not even by the state budget, but out of the pockets of ordinary consumers," the expert concluded.