Ukrainians owe almost US$1.2 bln for consumed electricity

Chairperson of the National Energy and Utilities Regulation Commission (NEURC) Oksana Kryvenko says consumers' debts for electricity bought in 2018 amounted to UAH 33.611 billion (US$1.2 billion), which was 16% up from 2017.

Read alsoUkrainians to pay two companies for electricity supplies in 2019

"Consumers' debt at the beginning of 2018 was UAH 28.942 billion [$1.1 billion] (with VAT), while and at the end of the year, it totaled UAH 33.611 billion (with VAT). The debt over the year grew by 16% or by UAH 4.670 billion [$172.6 million]," she wrote on Facebook on February 12.

Kryvenko says Ukrainians consumed electricity worth UAH 195.081 billion ($7.2 billion) in the past year.

According to monitoring results, the following regions have highest debts:  Lviv, Kharkiv, Zaporizhia, Sumy, Luhansk, and Cherkasy regions, where the level of payments is from 95% to 98%. However, households in some districts in Donetsk and Kyiv regions paid only for 24% and 40% of consumed electricity, respectively.

As UNIAN reported earlier, electricity consumption, excluding technological losses in the power grids, rose by 2.3% in 2018 from 2017, to 153.214 billion kWh.