German Galushchenko: We are passing through the heating season smoothly

Last year's largest repair campaign at power facilities in the history of Ukraine and the successful work of the air defence forces helped ensure the stable passage of the current heating season. German Galushchenko, the Minister of Energy of Ukraine, emphasised this during the national telethon Yedyni Novyny (United News).

"There was shelling, but the air defence system was operating at a high level, so there were no dramatic impacts on the system," he said.

The Ministry of Energy reminded that the repairs had planned to add 1.7 GW of capacity to the system, while today it had already been possible to reach the level of 2.2 GW, and repairs were ongoing.

German Galushchenko emphasised that the restoration works were being carried out, in particular, with equipment provided by international partners or purchased at the expense of the Ukraine Energy Support Fund, which had been established at the joint initiative of the Minister and European Commissioner for Energy Kadri Simson.

The stability of passing the autumn-winter electricity market is also evidenced by a sufficient level of generation to meet domestic consumer needs.

"There were occasional cases when we requested emergency assistance from neighbouring countries. It should be borne in mind that this is a normal process of working in a single power grid, as Ukraine is now part of the European power grid. Just recently, we provided emergency assistance to Poland, and this has happened several times," he explained.