In Ukraine, the law "On heat supply", which establishes a moratorium on the increase of heat tariffs for the population, compensates from the budget the difference in tariffs for heat from gas, but not for heat from alternative sources.
Serhii Dunaylo, vice president of Ukrteplocomunenergo, said that because of this, boiler plants that work or used to work on biofuel are practically stopped, reports Ukrainian Energy.
The tariff for heat from renewable energy sources is set at the level of -10% of the tariff for heat from gas.
"It is now much more profitable for it [biofuel boilers] to consume natural gas, which is sold at a discounted price of UAH 7.42 per m3, than to burn biomass. Maybe now the government will think about this problem, which had to be solved "yesterday", said Dunaylo.
He believes that if the government had decided to also compensate the costs of heat production from alternative energy sources, made appropriate changes to the Law "On Heat Supply" and introduced the alternative fuel market, then these boiler houses would have already started working.
Roman Kurnat, head of Zhovkvateploenergo in the city of Zhovkva, Lviv region, emphasized that if we take into account tariffs and the price of gas, alternative fuel becomes economically unprofitable.
About 6,500 residents of Zhovkva receive "green" heat from solid fuel boilers operating on wood waste.
"The price of fuel has increased many times, but the tariff will remain unchanged. For the fourth year already, we have been working on tariffs that have been in effect since 2018. The government provided compensation for the difference in tariffs from the state budget in order to protect the population from raising tariffs. But the last time we received this compensation was last year, according to the memorandum signed with the government," said Kurnat.
In addition, the spread of heat production from biomass is restrained by taxes on CO2 emissions.
Earlier, EcoPolitic wrote, that the State Energy Efficiency Agency and the Ministry of Energy have prepared 2 draft laws designed to exempt enterprises that burn biofuel, from paying taxes on CO2 emissions.
As EcoPolitic previously reported, in Lviv, the Mebel-Service company generates heat (capacity 8 MW) and electricity (capacity 2.2 MW) from waste from its production at its own bio-thermal power plant. It provides itself and thousands of families with energy.
