MINSK, 22 April (BelTA) – Plans are in place to double investments in modernizing the power grid in order to allow more single-family houses to use electricity for heating and hot water, BelTA learned from Belarusian Energy Minister Viktor Karankevich in the Council of the Republic on 22 April.
An investment program on repairing the power grid in 2021-2025 has been worked out in association with municipal authorities. “We intend to nearly double the amount of money poured into modernizing power grids in this period. The work will continue in the following years, too,” Viktor Karankevich said.
The energy minister said that in 2019 and in Q1 2020 they authorized about 14,000 applications for switching single-family houses to electricity for purposes of heating and hot water supply. Some 3,500 households have been converted already. If the amount of power requested by a household is unavailable, the local electric company looks into the possibility of upgrading the power grid in the short term. If this option is not feasible, then investments for upgrading the power grid are sought.
The Energy Ministry intends to continue working out new incentives for using electricity in the countryside. Particularly in the populated localities where natural gas is unavailable. “It is an alternative to natural gas. We are going to work on it,” the energy minister stressed.
Viktor Karankevich was in the Council of the Republic of the National Assembly of Belarus on 22 April to present bills on ratifying two protocols on amending the Eurasian Economic Union Treaty (the part concerning the formation of the common electricity market) and the Belarusian-Russian intergovernmental agreement on prices for natural gas deliveries to Belarus and tariffs on gas transportation via gas mains located in Belarus. The upper chamber of the Belarusian parliament voted in favor of both bills.
