Meeting to discuss measures to stimulate electricity consumption in households

It is necessary to stimulate electricity consumptions in households, Belarus President Aleksandr Lukashenko said at the meeting to discuss the draft decree “On the repayment of expenses attributed to the supply of electricity to the housing stock.”

“Additional volumes of electricity will emerge after the commissioning of the nuclear power plant. As I was frequently saying, we need to consume more electricity because we will even have it in abundance (if we continue using the existing capacities and introduce new ones). This is clean energy. And the transition to clean energy is a current trend worldwide. We will be less dependent on natural gas. According to our estimates, our consumption of natural gas will be reduced by 5 billion cubic meters,” the head of state said.

Aleksandr Lukashenko specified that the submitted draft decree regulates the consumption of electricity by the population, and the main issue is to stimulate this consumption. “There will be certain, we can say, preferences and requirements to the population: if you do not fulfill any terms, you will not get preferences and your tariffs for electricity will be higher,” the President said.

“It is true – the mechanism of repayment of expenses of the population if the consumption in individual residential houses is increasing,” Vice Premier Yuri Nazarov said.

“Yes, we can help owners of individual residential houses, pay compensations. But if there is no metering, if some other issues are not addressed, they will pay in full,” the head of state continued.

Aleksandr Lukashenko emphasized that he needs a consultation regarding the approaches to making certain decisions. “This issue affects the population, and it should not become a burden for the population. Electricity metering should be organized. If we just put it down on paper, and the population will be unable to do it… This is what I am concerned about,” the President said.

At the same time, the head of state is convinced that it is essential to stimulate the consumption of electricity in households because it is safer than the domestic use of natural gas and is important from the point of view of the economy. “Of course, we need to encourage people. I agree with it. But this push should not be too hard. I am especially concerned about it. Everything should be done gradually and in a calm manner,” the Belarusian leader emphasized.

“This is the second step, actually. A decision on individual electricity tariffs for the population was made in 2019. And we see that the population started to increase consumption and build new houses using electricity for heating, hot water supply, cooking. Now we are talking about the need to stimulate people living in houses which have been already built to use electricity for these purposes. Systematic work is in progress,” the vice premier said.

The meeting was attended by Vice Premier Yuri Nazarov, Energy Minister Viktor Karankevich, Chairman of the Minsk Oblast Executive Committee Aleksandr Turchin and Chairman of the Minsk City Hall Anatoly Sivak.

The draft decree was prepared to encourage more people to use electricity for heating, hot water supply and cooking in one-apartment houses (townhouses).