Restoration of energy infrastructure can take from 6 months to several years
1 April 2024 13:20
The most massive attack on power supply facilities in the entire period of the full-scale war lasted for several days across almost the entire territory of Ukraine. Yevhen Korf, Director of RPE ENERGO-PLUS LLC, said that Ukraine managed to avoid total blackouts in some regions due to the following
the power system uses Soviet-style transformer substations, Komersant ukrainskyi 
reports.
“The old substations are located over a large area, which allows for quick repair of damaged elements in case of a hit. If we had modern and compact European-style substations, one hit could lead to a complete shutdown of the substation, as the oil and transformer equipment would provoke fires and complete burnout of the substation,” said Yevhen Korf, director of RPE ENERGO-PLUS LLC.
According to him, when replacing transformer substations, the old equipment is often not disposed of, which is why we are able to repair damage faster.
“The delivery time for new transformers and new microprocessor technology from abroad, from the moment of ordering to receiving the equipment, can vary from 6 to 18 months. If we take into account the restoration work, we get a restoration period of 6 months, and in some cases up to several years,”
– Corf explained.
According to Yevgeny Korff, strategic planning is extremely important today, as power outages can affect the functioning of entire industries. It is worth considering a strategy to move to more compact and autonomous power nodes that will reduce the risk of large losses in the event of shocks. Such nodes can operate autonomously in the event of damage to key substations of the NPC.
It is also possible to switch to 20 kV distribution networks with the replacement of existing equipment, the use of cable lines and underground substations that are placed underground so that missiles cannot damage the distribution network. Currently, there are 2 10/0.4 kV substations in Kyiv and 20 kV and above underground substations in Europe.
On 22 March, Russian troops launched a massive combined attack on Ukraine . This attack was one of the largest attacks on the energy sector.
