Everyone pays twice because of fools. How did it turn out that instead of cheaper electricity imports, Ukraine receives more expensive emergency aid?

When the price of electricity for households was raised, we were promised to "prepare the energy industry for winter" with this money. Prices have increased, but the situation in the energy market has not improved in any way. There was not enough money for restoration in the past, and it is not enough now, debts remain, and due to the inability of the relevant ministry and the regulator to control the market, the real cost of kilowatts for citizens and businesses is increasing. What's worse, neither the money received from the increase in electricity, nor the money that we will be forced to pay additionally in August, is spent on solving the main problem of next winter, namely the restoration of destroyed energy capacities. We may not have enough energy capacity in winter, so there is time to prepare for blackouts even without missile and drone attacks.

In the last two weeks of summer, energy companies report receiving a record amount of emergency aid from the EU, because their own capacities are not enough to provide for consumers. On one of the hot days in the evening hours, we received "emergencies" in the amount comparable to the output of a nuclear power plant unit. That's a lot. Three questions arise: why exactly emergency aid, and not imports, what will be done in the winter, if the shortage has already begun, and where did the money from the increase in electricity prices for the population go?

Why exactly emergency aid for Ukraine, and not imports (which would be twice as cheap) for traders, is a question for the representatives of the National Commission for State Regulation of Energy and Public Utilities, which set the price limit for electricity at a level lower than the prices in the EU. Agree, no one will buy more expensive, but sell cheaper. Maximum and minimum prices set by the commission in the electricity market for customers who pay for light at market prices introduced the same restrictions with the idea of annoying Rinat Akhmetov, and in the end they created trouble for themselves. After all, due to the tariff, approximately one and a half million euros were paid for emergency assistance only in the last week. The prices are, of course, approximate: we have calculated the cost taking into account European data, because they are available.

What is known for sure is that if traders chose to import to cover the deficit, it would be much cheaper for Ukraine. Moreover, it is physically possible to supply electricity from the EU, but we will receive it more expensively than we could.

The sponsors of expensive kilowatts will be both consumers and businesses, because the tariff will cover the price anyway.

Where such a shortage of capacity comes from is supposedly clear. According to the latest published data, 70% of the thermal generation is broken, and the nuclear units are currently under repair. So, in general, energy workers knew that August would be difficult, but only the management of the industry, obviously, had a different idea of the degree of these difficulties.

Now the key question is what will happen next. If now we need to take emergency aid in the amount of an atomic unit, how much will we have to take in the peak of the heating season? In winter, we will not get by with nuclear units alone, we need CHP and TPP.

And the Ministry of Energy of Ukraine reports suspiciously imprecisely on their restoration and repairs. In the reports on the "successful repair campaign", the relevant department introduced a new evaluation criterion: 24 TPP power units and 23 CHP power units, or 60% of the total number, are "repaired AND under repair". The evaluation method is very convenient: "we sold you 24 kilograms of good AND rotten potatoes, you will figure out which is which in the winter."

According to market insiders, no more than 30% of the planned heat generation repairs were actually carried out, and repair work did not even begin at some of the stations. In addition, some units, the repair process of which has already been reported, will not be in service this winter or will be for a short time – only for the report on October 15, to voice beautiful percentages. Therefore, the electricity shortage is unlikely to disappear, especially considering that the heating season is guaranteed to increase the demand for electricity even without possible new destruction of the energy infrastructure. Again, this is definitely not new information to industry leadership, these are exact truths that have simply been ignored.

It is a pity to state this, but it is important to describe the situation that is actually happening, namely, the repair campaign of the energy system took place as if the war had already ended: the dates for the start and completion of the works were constantly postponed, and there was a banal lack of money for restoration. Neither the largest national oil and gas company Naftogaz of Ukraine nor the state-owned company Centerenergo were able to attract international financing for their CHPPs, just as Rinat Akhmetov's DTEK company was also unable to do so.

No one gave an honest answer to the question of where the money from the increase in electricity prices for households was spent.

We will remind you that the idea was that, thanks to the increase in prices, the State Enterprise National Nuclear Energy Generating Company "Energoatom" (SE NNEGC) would begin to settle with market expenses, and the entire electricity sector would receive funds for preparing for winter and purchasing fuel. But the August deficit and the purchase of electricity in Europe at the highest possible prices show that this did not happen.

As of the end of August, the situation cannot be corrected. There are no new capacities, in particular gas turbines, and there will be none. The only new capacity transferred by the Americans is on the balance sheet of the same State Enterprise National Nuclear Energy Generating Company "Energoatom" (SE NNEGC), but it generates not electricity, but service bills. In fact, the declared goal of increasing tariffs failed, and the additional cash flow was not spent on station repairs, but on something unknown. Some of the funds were spent on the purchase of expensive buses, some on the payment of solar stations in the occupied territories of the deputy of A. Yermak R. Shurma.

We will see the result (more precisely, we will not see it, because the energy balance is classified) in the winter months. If the worst expectations come true, thermal generation in Ukraine in winter will produce 2-3 GW (!) less than the repair campaign promises. This means the need for blackout schedules even without shelling and even with imports and emergency aid –  the most expensive way to cover the deficit.

Therefore, for the increased price of electricity, we will most likely receive outage schedules in the format 2-4 (two hours with power, four without) or 2-6 (two hours with power, six without).

What will happen in case of shelling, no one is even ready to predict.

Read this article in Ukrainian and russian.