You're reading: Households too heavy burden on Ukraine’s energy system

Ukraine's energy-wasting habits are becoming much harder to afford in an era of coal shortages and scarce interest -- or money -- in paying Russia's Gazprom for natural gas supplies.

Deputy Prime Minister Gennadiy Zubko
estimates that 47 percent of heat losses are due to buildings’ energy
inefficiency. His boss, Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk, once joked Ukrainians
cook eggs on their heaters during the winter with the windows popped open.

Households remain the country’s largest
energy consumer, soaking up to 30 percent of the energy resources, according to
Teply Dim, a website devoted to energy efficiency. They take up to 25 percent
of the domestically produced electricity and 40 percent of the heating energy.

In the U.S., households consume 22
percent of the energy.

Grzegorz
Stefan Gajda, project manager of the International Finance Corporation, says
the distribution of energy in Ukraine remains inefficient. As gas is supplied
by a single pipe to a whole multistory building, and if it doesn’t have a gas
meter, one can’t save anything even if less gas is consumed. So there’s no
motivation for saving energy.

“Poorly insulated
buildings can lose from 30 percent to 50 percent of their heat to the
environment,” Gajda estimates.

The
Environmental Protection Agency, a federal office in the U.S., certifies home
appliances in the U.S. with an energy efficiency rating, tells Dorothee Boorse, a
Massachusetts-based expert on energy and environment.

“A 2014 poll found that 79 percent of Americans care about energy
efficiency. Per capita energy use declined 13 percent in the decade
2000-2010,” she says. “In spite of increased population, total
electricity use has been almost flat since 2007, and has declined for four of
the last five years.”

Kirill and Liza Volynskiy, a
young dentist couple living in Kyiv, have their heating and water prices fixed, whereas electricity depends on monthly consumption.

The Volynskiy’s bill for hot
water and heating in November was around Hr 300. Their two-room apartment has
modernized windows, though as their house is a 1950s-era building, it is very
cold inside in the winter time, especially when the temperature drops below -10
Celsius degrees. “Then we have to use an electric heater,” says
Volynskiy. “Besides, we reinstalled all the radiators.”

Volodymyr Skorobagatko, a 31-year-old
software developer from Kyiv, has lived with his family in an old Soviet
building until they decided to move one kilometer outside the capital city into
an apartment that was built in 2011 and where all energy consumption can be
regulated.

“Every heater has its own
regulator,” says Skorobagatko. This leads to a 40-percent decrease of energy
consumption.

Each apartment in the neighborhood has a
separate pipe that delivers water and gas. Some install a special Wi-Fi sensor
that keeps the track of temperature on in the rooms.

“A typical boiler will tell you the
temperature in the heaters, but this system tells you the temperature in the
air… This allows one to save gas usage by about 30 percent,” Skorobagatko
explains.

Adrianna Melnyck Hankewych, a
40-year-old member of Ukrainian diaspora in the U.S., lives with her husband
and three-year-old child in a private house in Bronxville, just outside of the
New York City. Their heating bill is approximately $350 per month during the
winter whereas electricity is $250 per month.

Unlike many Ukrainians, they can turn off
the heat when they leave the house. Hankewych says that they might switch to
natural gas instead of oil for heat, depending on
the prices.

Kyiv Post staff writer Ilya Timtchenko can be
reached at [email protected].