February will bring frost: will Ukraine’s power grid survive?
3 February 10:45
The heating season in Ukraine is currently going on without any major shocks: there are no long scheduled power outages, batteries are heating up, and hot water is flowing from the tap. Of course, the promised frosts in February are a bit stressful, but one thing is comforting – spring and warmth are coming soon. Can we already say that the country has managed to get through this heating season, despite the predictions that it will be the most difficult, or is it too early to relax and rejoice,
Last week, Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said that Ukraine continues to restore destroyed energy facilities and is working to develop generation distribution. In total, in 2024, about 4 GW of thermal and hydropower capacity was restored, and 233 generating units with a total capacity of more than 830 MW were connected. Most of them are gas-fired generation facilities. Repairs and restoration of authorized facilities are ongoing.
“This year, we plan to restore about 3 GW more. For this year, the Ministry of Energy and other responsible agencies have been tasked with putting into operation almost 900 MW more capacity of distributed generation facilities,” said Denys Shmyhal.
However, in June last year, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that Ukraine, with the help of partners, plans to build up to one gigawatt of gas-fired shunting generation by the end of the year and another 4 gigawatts in the following years. But only a little more than one-tenth of the gigawatt promised by Zelensky has been created – 133 MW, Ukrenergo reported . That is only 13% of the promised gigawatt.
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Well, they didn’t make it, but consumers didn’t feel it either. Until February, gas, electricity, water, and heating were all available without interruption. But the winter is not over yet, and February may still bring surprises.
We survived thanks to the weather and business vacations
By November, only 4 GW had been restored, but if it hadn’t been for the weather and the long “winter holidays” of businesses, it is not known how we would have survived the winter, says
“The warm winter helped Ukrainians not to freeze. But not only the weather, but also the fact that from the first days of December, the industry reduced production and, consequently, electricity consumption and returned to work only in the 20th of January. Although they usually did so before the New Year and until January 10. And even those enterprises that work for defense, they have reduced their work. And, of course, the absence of massive shelling played an important role in the fact that we went through most of the winter in a calm mode, without any outages,” emphasizes Yuriy Korolchuk.
“In fact, we are saved by nuclear power, which operates in favorable conditions, without sharp increases in electricity consumption, and therefore without a heavy load. Because if at least one unit fails, it will be difficult to cover it with thermal generation, and then we will have to have blackouts, at least for enterprises, emphasizes Korolchuk.
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But, as the Prime Minister himself noted, the country has managed to get through this winter normally thanks to gas generation, and there are surprises waiting for us in February and March. As noted in the comments
“Today, the price of gas on the stock exchange is about $600, and in the summer it was $300, and we have about 10% of it in the storage facility, which is a historical minimum, it has never happened before. And this is one of the harbingers that if we don’t buy it urgently, we will return to rolling blackouts. We have gas generation at thermal power plants. So, the radiators will be cooler and the hot water will be colder. February will be a difficult month. If we don’t pump gas urgently, there will be no pressure in the pipe to lift the remaining gas from the gas storage facilities,” says Oleg Popenko.
We will have to rely on ourselves
At the same time, economist Yuriy Korolchuk believes that the restoration of destroyed and damaged energy facilities should not be delayed, as most of them are suspended in winter. After all, alternative energy sources were useless this winter. But in the summer, solar generation with its 300 MW sometimes saves the day. And this year, if the nuclear power plant is repaired again, there is hope that with the help of solar power plants, we will not be without electricity for so long.
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“I can’t say that our foreign partners are helping us a lot in the recovery. DTEK, for example, has completely dismantled Kurakhovskaya TPP, and some parts were brought from Europe and the Baltic states. We managed to patch up Ladyzhyn TPP and part of Burshtyn TPP. But the state-owned Zmiivska and Trypilska TPPs remain destroyed, there is nothing to restore,” says Korolchuk.
And it seems that there will be no such assistance from abroad in the restoration of the facilities, as such, the expert emphasizes. “The fact that foreigners give us a lot of help to restore energy facilities is an illusion. The things that were brought to us to restore the energy sector had nothing to do with energy, the expert emphasizes. These are mainly generators, mini-boilers, and so on. About $400 million in grant programs alone.
Although foreigners have allocated money for the restoration of substations, it is not known how much and where it went. This is classified information. It is known that Ukrenergo received one and a half billion euros for repairs and protection of facilities, but no one knows how it was spent. It was reported that up to UAH 20 billion was spent on protection from shelling, but there are no reports.
Today, experts say that how we end this winter will depend on two main factors: the weather and the shelling.
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Author: Alla Dunina