Belarus' electricity consumption up by 6.6% in January-November

MINSK, 20 December (BelTA) – Electricity consumption in Belarus increased by 6.6% in January-November, Energy Minister Viktor Karankevich told reporters at the BelTA press center.

Belarus' total electricity consumption in January-November 2023 rose by 2.3 billion kW/h year-on-year to reach 37.1 billion kW/h.

During the same period, electricity consumption by the real sector of the economy went up by 8.5%, by households who used it for heating and hot water supply by 38.4%, by electric transport by 23%.

By the end of 2023, electricity consumption is projected to total 41 billion kW/h, about 28% of that volume is to be generated by the Belarusian nuclear power plant (BelNPP).

Electricity generated by the nuclear power plant is widely used for electrification of the housing stock. As Viktor Karankevich noted, there are several aspects of this work. The first one is the construction of new all-electric apartment blocks. In the current five-year period, about 2 million square meters of such housing is to be commissioned. In 2021 and in January-November 2023, more than 1 million square meters of all-electric houses were delivered.

The second aspect is switching from solid fuel to electricity in servicing apartment blocks. The corresponding schedules for the five-year period have been drawn up, the list includes about 100 such houses across various regions of the country; 19 of the houses have already been upgraded.

The third aspect is the transfer of individual housing stock to electricity for the purpose of heating and hot water supply. In January-November 2023, energy suppliers received 22,900 applications to obtain technical specifications to increase electrical power capacity in single-family residential buildings for the purposes of heating and hot water supply; 21,700 or 94.6% of these applications were satisfied. All in all, since state energy incentives were introduced, in the period from 2019 to November 2023 - energy suppliers received 101,800 applications, of which 88.6%, or 90,200, were satisfied.