Kyiv must speed up preparations for winter and move forward with signing contracts for backup heat supply: Oleksii Kuleba

A meeting chaired by Oleksii Kuleba, Deputy Prime Minister for the Restoration of Ukraine and Minister for Communities and Territories Development, was held to discuss Kyiv’s preparations for the 2026/2027 heating season.

The discussion focused on ensuring a backup heat supply system in the event of an emergency or the shutdown of certain combined heat and power plants, specifically the Darnytsia CHP-4 and part of the consumers in the CHP-5 zone on the city’s left bank.

During the meeting, organizational and technical measures necessary to provide consumers with heat and hot water under crisis scenarios were reviewed. This involves deploying backup heat generation sources, connecting them to the networks, and preparing the infrastructure for rapid startup.

In particular, the parameters for backup generation were defined, which will ensure the minimum required temperature in residential buildings even under difficult weather conditions.

Separately, the participants focused on the placement of backup generation sources, the identification of land plots, and ensuring the technical conditions for connecting them to heating, gas, electricity, and water networks.

“The state is already committing significant financial resources to protecting and maintaining backup systems for the capital’s heat supply. The Government has disbursed UAH 987 million for priority protective measures, is preparing an additional UAH 967 million for advance payments for distributed heat generation equipment, and has separately earmarked another sum worth UAH 2 billion for protecting critical infrastructure and launching additional heating capacity. In total, nearly UAH 4 billion in state funds were allocated during April and May. These are taxpayers’ resources and the resources of a country at war. And this is despite the fact that the capital has the largest budget after the state budget,” emphasized Oleksii Kuleba.

The issue of implementing specific projects within the CHP’s heat supply zone was also discussed, particularly the construction of additional generation sources.

The Deputy Prime Minister for the Restoration of Ukraine stressed that the city must immediately take concrete steps, such as signing contracts, selecting contractors, preparing sites, connecting to networks, and launching backup generation, and must provide contracted solutions with clear deadlines, a financing schedule, and personally accountable individuals by May 10.