Economy Ministry mulling over unified energy consumer system

Acting Energy Minister Yuriy Vitrenko has said the ministry plans to create a unified digital system of energy consumers to ensure protection of their vulnerable groups in the event of unforeseen circumstances or problems.

That is according to the ministry's statement published on the government's portal on March 10.

In particular, Vitrenko announced the need "to create a unified digital system as one of the key elements of sustainable development of the energy sector." Such a system will primarily deal with protecting vulnerable consumers of gas, power, and heat.

Read alsoLooking for way out of "green" deadlock in Ukrainian energy sectorThe system should become the result of joint efforts by a number of agencies, in particular the Energy Ministry, the Ministry of Social Policy, the Ministry for Digital Transformation of Ukraine, the Finance Ministry, the Ministry for Economic Development, Trade and Agriculture, the Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine (AMCU), and the State Service for Food Safety and Consumer Protection. It will contain information about consumers of housing and utility services, prices and tariffs they pay, subsidies accrued to them, etc.

"As a result of the analysis, we'll even be able to identify vulnerable consumers in advance and offer them one-time assistance in case of unforeseen circumstances or other issues," Vitrenko said.

In addition, the system will have services for tracking utility costs and analyzing them, as well as for changing the provider of utilities.

Noteworthy, the system does not envisage a change in the utility subsidies mechanism currently in force.

Operators of gas and electricity transmission systems, distribution networks and others will be involved in the project implementation.