Could Ukraine build up to 1 GW of manoeuvrable generation this year
14 June 2024 10:31
ПРОГНОЗ
Against the backdrop of Russia’s constant shelling of Ukrainian manoeuvrable generation, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said at the opening of the Ukraine Recovery Conference that Ukraine, with the help of partners, intends to build up to 1 GW of gas manoeuvrable generation this year and another 4 GW in the coming years.
At the same time, experts say it will be extremely difficult to do so. So, how realistic is it to implement President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s statement ?
Commissioning of new power units or repair of damaged ones?
Former Energy Minister Ivan Plachkov told journalists that it is likely that the President meant repairing the power units damaged by Russia and launching 1 GW of manoeuvrable generation by the heating season, which is quite realistic.
“We have a lot of destroyed power plants now. I think that the President and those who informed him of this information meant that during this period, out of 40 damaged power units (about 200 MW, about 220 MW), it will be possible to assemble and repair 4 or 5 power units and thus put 1 GW into operation before the heating season,”
– plachkov explained.
He also believes that it will not be possible to build 4 GW of gas-fired generation soon and only after the war is over.
“I think it is realistic to do this only after the war and then at least in about 10 years,”
– plachkov said.
Is it realistic to build 4 GW of manoeuvrable generation at all?
Former Advisor to the Minister of Energy, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary Lana Zerkal also criticised President Zelensky’s statement. On her Facebook page, she said that it is impossible to build 4 GW at all.
“There are not so many equipment manufacturers on the world market. And it’s impractical. All that can be done is to build the foundations,”
– she wrote.
Zerkal also disagreed with the President’s thesis about the possible construction of 1 GW of generation by the end of this year.
“In reality, this is impossible. Gas generation is not built within six months of the announcement. It takes a year to find turbines, determine the installation site, make a project, connect them, train teams to manage them – in the best conditions, it takes a year. In Ukraine, the conditions are not the best: the turbines that were delivered last year have not been launched yet,”
– says Lana Zerkal.
Not 1GW in a year, but 5MW
In a commentary to Kommersant Ukrainsky 
, Volodymyr Omelchenko, Director of Energy Programmes at the Razumkov Centre, also gave an approximate figure of one year, but clarified that it is not about 1 GW of gas-fired flexible generation.
“In our conditions, it is possible to build it in a year, but it is not a 1 GW plant, it is about 5 MW maximum. It means that for 1 GW, we will need to build about 200 such plants. I doubt very much that we have that many engineers now. It is theoretically possible to build 1 GW in a year, of course, but for this we need to have materials in addition to personnel, because only 7 plants in the world produce the necessary turbines,”
– he said.
Omelchenko explained that all of these plants are already fulfilling orders from other companies, so Ukraine will have to get in line, which will also take a lot of time.
“In Europe, everything has been scheduled for a long time. So we have to put our order first. But in this case, they will have to pay a fine for not fulfilling the orders they already have. And why would they want to do that? It is unlikely that there is any spare capacity now, and Ukraine will have to queue up. Therefore, orders can take a very long time to be fulfilled, and then there is the issue of transportation, bureaucracy, permits and licences,”
– said the expert.
According to him, the problem of staff shortage is also very relevant and may affect the time for building generating facilities.
“There should be highly qualified engineers and other specialists, but are they available and in what quantity? We have a big shortage of personnel, many of them are mobilised, others are waiting for mobilisation,”
– omelchenko summarised.
Author: Alyona Kaplina
