Use of electricity for heating in Belarus increases 5 times in past two years

MINSK, 21 December (BelTA) - Over the past two years, the amount of electricity used by the population for heating has increased more than 5 times - from 92.5 million kWh to 474.9 million kWh, Belarusian Energy Minister Viktor Karankevich said in an interview with the Economy of Belarus magazine.

“Since 2019 the country's power supplying organizations have received about 93,700 applications for technical specifications to install an electric heating device. A total of 88.2% of them have been satisfied,” the energy minister said. “Power supplying organizations cannot satisfy all the requests of citizens at once. After all, power grids were initially built for other household loads and were not designed for electric heating. The system was quickly adjusted, and special attention is paid to such works in rural areas.”

Plans are in place to build about 2 million square meters of housing with electric heating by the end of the five-year plan.

The amount of electricity consumed by charging stations in 2022 increased by more than a third compared to 2021, from 10 million kWh to 14 million kWh.