Mykolaiv residents will pay for heating throughout the year: What will be the annual tariff of Oblteploenergo

Preparation for the heating season. Photo: NikVesti

The new tariff policy of «Mykolaivoblenergo» will provide for the introduction of a constant subscription fee throughout the year, and during the heating season, the population will have to pay additionally for the supply of heating medium to the residence.

Mykolaivovlteploenergo, director of the Mykolaivvoblteploenergo utility company, Mykola Lohvinov, said this in a comment to NikVesti.

«We have not given up on this idea. This will be the decision of the executive committee. For the time being, the tariff will remain at the level it was before the start of the full-scale invasion, but will be divided into two parts. That is, what a person would pay for five months, he will pay for 12 months. I want to implement it this disgraceful season,» said Mykola Lohvinov.

At the expense of the subscription fee, the utility company plans to maintain and maintain the heating network in proper condition during the year, and the money from the additional «autumn-winter» payments will go to pay for gas, electricity, and water needed to supply heat to the home.

The company expects that after the introduction of the two-rate tariff, residents of Mykolaiv will start saving heat.

«The main goal of this tariff is to motivate people in the matter of energy efficiency, so that they start saving coolant. That is, it will not affect our general economy, but it will allow people, if they implement energy-efficient means, to pay less per square meter. People are not interested in the tariff, but the amount of the payment, right? Yes Yes. There are condominiums where the price is 11 hryvnias per square meter. Because people there installed TP, insulated the facade, installed regulators on batteries — it's interesting. Why are we interested? This is not altruism. The less people use heat, the less gas we burn, the less we will depend on the order of Naftogaz of Ukraine,» said Mykola Lohvinov.

He also explained exactly how people can save heat during the heating season.

«Our winter has been warm for the last two years, correct? But for some reason, the costs of the coolant increased by 10%. Why? One of the reasons is that the houses are not prepared for the rainy season, they are not flushed, and the hydraulics are not done properly. This is a problem. And secondly, they stopped saving. It is necessary to insulate the heat pipe that people have in the basement or on the roof, close the window in time, do not open the entrance, so as not to heat the street, and so on,» added Mykola Lohvinov.

What is known about the 2024/25 heating season in Mykolaiv?

We will remind, during the conference on the restoration of Ukraine in Berlin in June 2024, the mayor of Mykolaiv, Oleksandr Sienkevych, reported to the chairman of the board of NJSC Naftogaz of Ukraine Oleksii Chernyshov, how the city is preparing for the start of the heating season.

Oleksiy Chernyshov himself, in a comment to NikVesti, promised to monitor that Mykolaiv CHP was ready for the heating season this year.

Later, Mykolaiv City Mayor Oleksandr Sienkevych said that at the start of the heating season in 2024, Mykolaiv CHP will take into account all last year's mistakes.

Before that, it was reported that Mykolaiv would not have time to build a new heat network on Pohranychna Street before the start of the 2024-2025 heating season due to a lack of funds. Although the director of Mykolaiv thermal power plant Dmytro Myroshnychenko assured that the workers will have time to complete these repair works.

How Mykolaiv CHP failed the heating season in 2023

Excavation of Mykolaiv thermal power station in the center of Mykolaiv, photo from the archive of NikVesti, September 2023.

The 2023-24 heating season in Mykolaiv began on November 14, but Mykolaiv CHP was able to provide heat to residents only at the beginning of December due to numerous accidents on heating networks. The mayor of Mykolaiv, Oleksandr Sienkevych, believes that the problems with starting heat will only get worse in the coming years.

After the disruption of the heating season and statements by Mykolayiv RMA about the need for personnel decisions, the CHP began an official investigation to find the culprits.

As of the evening of November 18, 2023, Mykolaiv CHP connected only half of the total number of its consumers in Mykolaiv to heat. At the same time, in September, the CHP reported that it was 92% ready for the start of the heating season.

Excavation of the CHP plant in the center of Mykolaiv, photo from the archive of NikVesti, November 2023

As of the evening of November 20, dozens of apartment buildings remained without heating in Mykolaiv. In several districts of the city, repair works of heating networks continued. Then the first deputy of Mykolaiv city mayor Vitalii Lukov announced that they plan to connect all residential buildings of Mykolaiv to heat in a few days.

However, on the evening of November 21 , there were still more than 400 apartment buildings in the city without heating. Mykolaiv CHPP said that delays in the supply of heat to multi-apartment buildings occurred due to large gusts on the main pipelines of the heating lines.

On November 30, the CHP reported that due to emergency works in three more areas of the city, residents will be left without heating again for some time. However, the company immediately announced the good news — according to forecasters, the weather conditions in Mykolaiv are expected to improve.

Numerous gusts of CHP networks are connected, in particular, with the fact that last heating season the enterprise used salty water from the estuary, which accelerates the corrosion of already outdated pipes. In contrast to this, purified water from wells was poured into «Mykolaivvoblteploenergo», which NikVesti wrote in the article «Winter is near: What will the heating season be like in Mykolaiv?». Thus, the start of both heating seasons began without disruptions and significant accidents in the houses served by the regional heat and power utility.

At the same time, the Mykolaiv Thermal Power Plant reported that during the 2023/2024 heating season, water from the estuary will be poured in only in emergency cases. Thus, the networks of the enterprise are filled with salt water by 8%, while last year the systems were filled with estuarine water by 91%.

The section of Mariupolska Street where the CHP refuses to repair the asphalt, photo NikVesti, March 2024

For six months now, Mykolaiv CHPP has not been bringing Mariupolska (Moskovska) Street (from Tsentralnyi Avenue to Chkalov, where repair work was carried out on heating networks last fall. In Mykolaiv CHPP, they say that it makes no sense to asphalt the excavated sections of the road along Mariupolska Street at the moment, because after several The section of the network from Dunaieva Street to Sevastopolska Street will be partially replaced.

We will remind you that the director of Mykolaiv Thermal Power Plant (TPP) Dmytro Myroshnychenko submitted a declaration on property and income for 2023. During the year, the official earned 2 million 143 thousand 897 hryvnias. On average, the salary of an official was 178 thousand hryvnias per month (about 4.5 thousand US dollars).

In addition, the Mykolaiv District Administrative Court will consider the case based on the lawsuit filed by the journalist of the online media NikVesti against the Mykolaiv Thermal Power Plant (TPP), which refused to provide information about the salaries of the management during 2023.