The rub will be higher household electricity bills.

The rub will be higher household electricity bills. By ending Energorynok’s monopoly on buying and selling electricity on the wholesale market, the new system ends ‘cross-subsidization’ — where high industry rates kept household rates low. The Ukrainian Institute for the Future estimates household rates will increase by 28% this year and by another 84% in 2020. For industrial consumers, tariffs will increase by 45% this year, followed by a slight decrease of 5% in 2020. According to Eurostat, Ukraine has the lowest electricity prices in Europe. In the second half of 2018 – Ukrainians paid 4 euro cents the kilowatt hour, compared to 10 in Moldova, 13 in Romania, 14 in Poland, and an average of 21 across the EU-28.