Karina Bovsunovska20:36, 06/03/24

Now Kharkiv has to get electricity from other cities.

Mayor of Kharkiv Igor Terekhov talked about the difficult situation with electricity in the city / photo facebook/ihor.terekhov

Kharkiv can no longer provide itself with its own electricity due to significant damage to the energy infrastructure , so the city is forced to obtain electricity from other settlements. This was stated by the mayor of Kharkiv Igor Terekhov in an interview with the Estonian television and radio broadcasting company ERR .

“Today, we do not have any generation of our own in the city and we are forced to take electricity from other cities. This is a very difficult situation, and it balances on the edge, we understand it very well. It is impossible to enter the winter with such an energy supply system, because everything depends on the energy supply another communal sphere, starting with water supply and ending with gas and heat supply,” he noted.

According to him, it is necessary to invest in the energy industry now. Currently, there are some agreements with the government regarding the subvention of the city budget to prepare for the heating season. Terekhov assured that these funds will be spent only on cogeneration plants and generators that produce electricity.

“So we will use the funds of the city budget and the future subvention, and in addition, today I have arrangements in Berlin to sign an agreement on the urgent provision of 25 million euros for these purposes,” the mayor said.

Terekhov added that the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development has already sent Kharkiv a draft of such an agreement, so he is counting on these funds to purchase such equipment.

“But I want to tell you that this is a very complicated process, because such equipment is manufactured for several months. Therefore, we have already held negotiations with all manufacturers who produce such products, and these are only foreign enterprises, and reserved a certain part under our guarantees, under our word. Because we will not be able to postpone this process. It is very important for us that all this is done,” the mayor emphasized.

The ERR journalist assumed that if it is not possible to restore the electricity supply in the proper amount, then part of Kharkiv residents will have to leave the city for the winter. However, Terekhov replied that the authorities are working to ensure that all residents of Kharkiv are provided with heat. 

“We are making maximum efforts for this. What we are doing today, no city in any country in the world has done. We need to redo the entire system of energy supply, water supply and heat supply. And we have only a few months for all this. Our idea – to build small substations. It is impossible to destroy them all. They produce about 1-3 megawatts, no more,” the official explained. 

(C)UNIAN 2024