Photo from UNIAN
Lawmakers will demand the resignation of acting Energy Minister Olha Buslavets.
Ukrainian Member of Parliament Oleksandr Dubinskyi says Ukraine pays one of the world's highest green, or feed-in tariffs, that is UAH 4.21 (US$0.16) per kWh.
Read alsoUkrainian MP explains why Cabinet switches from low-cost nuclear power to expensive electricity
"If our country is the poorest in Europe, with the lowest wages, why should we pay the world's highest feed-in tariffs? Do we have highly paid labor or such special sunlight or wind? No, we don't. All this because people like [Ukrainian oligarch Rinat] Akhmetov own 'green' energy, his share is about 60% of the market. A 20% share belongs to [Ukrainian businessman Valeriy] Khoroshkovsky, while the remaining 20% share is owned by a group of other super businessmen, about 10 people," he said, as reported by Dubinsky.pro on May 18.
The lawmaker noted that the active operation of the country's nuclear power plants (NPPs) is disadvantageous to this group since the NPPs generate the cheapest electricity whose generation costs are around UAH 0.56 (US$0.2) per kWh, that is, almost 87% down from the green one.
For this reason, Ukraine's acting Minister of Energy and Environmental Policy Olha Buslavets, who is close to Akhmetov, began to suspend the operation of Ukrainian NPPs' units and reduce their output under various pretexts (speaking of accident risks, low demand, etc.).
"Back in December 2019, supposedly faulty power units of our nuclear power plants generated 12.5 GW each against today's 7.5 GW, the lowest capacity in our NPPs' history. This confirms only one thing: Buslavets works for a certain oligarch rather than for the people of Ukraine," the MP said.
Dubinskyi added that lawmakers on May 19 would start collecting signatures under a letter addressed to Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal to demand that Olha Buslavets be dismissed. If the prime minister fails to heed the call, the question might be raised about the dismissal of Shmyhal himself.