Kudrytskyi stated that power cuts had returned due to a decision by the NEURC
Volodymyr Kudrytskyi wrote about this on Facebook. The power cut schedules for 3 April were also confirmed by Ukrenergo.
Kudrytskyi stated that power cuts are returning, but this time, in his view, the cause is neither the recent attack on the power grid nor the weather. He linked the situation to a decision by the NEURC, which, from the start of April, set price caps on electricity for non-domestic consumers at a level which, in his words, prevents the use of imports from the EU for most of the time and prevents distributed gas-fired generation from operating normally.
To explain the consequences, the former head of Ukrenergo compared this decision to an administrative cap on diesel prices below market levels. According to him, in such a situation, electricity “disappears” from the market just as fuel would have disappeared. He also recalled that, in his view, a similar situation had already occurred in winter, when administratively set prices had curbed electricity imports from the European Union.
Among the consequences of this decision, Kudritsky cited near-all-day restrictions on industry on 3 April, the return of power cuts for the public as early as this spring, and risks for investors in new distributed generation. According to him, under such market conditions, the government’s plan to create 1.5 GW of new distributed generation could be at risk, as investors are postponing their decisions.
What is known about the schedules for 3 April
On 3 April, Ukrenergo announced power cut schedules: for industrial facilities, power restrictions were to be in place from 06:00 to 22:00, and for domestic consumers and other categories, hourly power cuts from 07:00 to 11:00.
It should be noted that power supply disruptions have been one of the reasons for the decline in fertiliser production in Ukraine. A shortage of fertilisers could lead to a 20% reduction in crop yields.
