Will Ukrainians face a “dark winter”? Expert tells how many hours a day power cuts may occur
26 June 2024 15:22
ЕКСКЛЮЗИВ
Since May, Ukraine has been experiencing power cuts due to a significant deficit in the energy system caused by massive Russian shelling. Ukrainians started to live again according to blackout schedules, which became more stringent in June: in some regions, including the capital, there may be no electricity for four, six or even seven hours in a row. With this in mind, experts stress that preparations for winter should be made now, as the situation with power outages can only get worse.
According to Serhiy Dyachenko, Head of the Bureau for Comprehensive Analysis and Forecasts, energy expert, even under the most optimistic scenario, Ukraine will not be able to avoid power outages in winter, including with regard to imports from Europe, repair and development of its own generation and manoeuvring capacities. He said this in an exclusive commentary to "Komersant Ukrainian".
“God willing, we will go through the winter like last year, when the blackouts were like this – 4-8 hours a day,”
– dyachenko predicted.
He stressed that Russia has caused quite a lot of damage to the Ukrainian power grid, and even with quality repairs and imports, it is not worth expecting that electricity will be supplied in full.
“We will have time to repair something. We are promised gigawatts, and we are not talking about new generation, but about repairing the existing one, I believe in it, because there is no serious damage to turbine units or boiler units. Then we will survive the winter more or less normally. If we keep the generation that we have now, we will have a supply of about 4 hours a day. That is, if we upgrade something and additionally install a power plant unit and a mini-CHP, then we will be able to live through this period like last winter (2022-2023),”
– the expert said.
At the same time, he said, the situation in the capital, although difficult, is less critical than in some other regions of Ukraine.
“In Kyiv, our CHPPs are still intact. They meet our electricity needs by about 20%,” he said,
– said Dyachenko.
He noted that in addition to repairing existing facilities, Ukraine needs air defence to protect them:
“First of all, Ukraine needs to strengthen its air defence system to protect the generation that is in operation and the one that is being repaired.”
As experts have previously reported, despite President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s statements, Ukraine will not have time to build up to 1 GW of gas-fired flexible generation this year.
