Ukraine's energy system situation: Power outage schedules to be applied whole winter

Baseline scenario did not work

The optimistic forecast that Ukraine would go through the winter without any blackouts did not materialize. Russian shelling continues, and energy facilities - both generation and transmission and distribution systems - are often targeted. Even at zero temperatures, we have to apply up to two, and on critical days after the Russian shelling, up to four rounds of blackouts.

The last severe Russian attack on the Ukrainian energy sector took place on November 28. The Ukrainian Armed Forces reported that there were 12 hits during the Russian shelling, mostly at facilities in the fuel and energy sector. This is the 11th massive attack on civilian energy infrastructure in the last year alone.

In addition, a few days ago, another large generation facility was damaged by Russian shelling. According to RBC-Ukraine, the nuclear power plant unit that was reported to have been shut down by the IAEA was put back online at the end of last week. However, as of December 11, not all 9 nuclear units were operating at full capacity, industry sources told the agency.

The reason is that some power transmission facilities were damaged. “Because of this, it is not yet possible to transfer such an amount of electricity (from the NPP to the grid - ed.) after the last 2 Russian attacks. We had to reduce production,” the source said.

Strikes at sore spots

Several other industry sources confirmed to RBC-Ukraine that in the latest attacks, the Russians focused on electricity transmission facilities. They tried to destroy them so that the consequences would complicate the electricity supply in Ukraine. “Both generation and transmission were affected. But the situation with electricity is now more determined by the state of transmission,” said one of the interlocutors.

When choosing their targets, the Russians are trying to destroy the power system in such a way as to cut off certain regions from the possibility of supplying them via backup routes. The system is designed in such a way - and Russia is well aware of this - that if transmission lines are damaged in a certain direction, it is possible to rebuild the communication and send electricity there via an alternative route from areas where there is enough of it. And now the Russians are trying to deprive Ukrainian power engineers of the opportunity to use this scheme.

An example is the situation on December 11 and 12, when the blackout was canceled in the western part of Ukraine, while in other regions there were up to 2 blackouts. DTEK explained that it was impossible to cover the shortage of electricity at the expense of the western regions and thus equalize the blackout schedules due to damage to the transmission system. The new instruction on hourly blackouts from the Ministry of Energy does not work in this case either. It is aimed only at equalizing the schedules by region and cannot improve the situation in case of technical problems.

Hennadii RIabtsev, director of the Psyche Center, called naive hopes and assumptions that the Russians will not intensify shelling of energy facilities before winter.

“All the forecasts of a “winter without outages” were based on the fact that there would be no damage from the Russian strikes. Those who made them were simply protecting themselves from the “unexpected” that did happen. These predictions were, of course, not based on reality. And, by and large, they should have made a forecast taking into account all the risks,” he told RBC-Ukraine.

Capacity shortage and low prices

According to Riabtsev, the current situation with energy supply is determined by many reasons, in addition to the Russian shelling. First of all, it is the lack of capacity reserves for generation. So far, the effect of distributed generation is not as great as expected. Instead of 1 GW of capacity, by the end of the year, there may be a maximum of 800 MW. This will be mainly for local guaranteed energy supply for those who will install gas piston and gas turbine units. And these are mostly large companies.

There is little hope for solar energy in winter, as this type of generation has quadrupled compared to summer. “For example, according to measurements in the Kyiv region, if you take a 20-square-meter solar panel, it produces 120 kWh per month in the summer, and now it produces 30 kWh. So the problem is a lack of capacity and a lack of reserves,” he said.

In addition, there are limited opportunities to transmit electricity via alternative routes. “As a result, we see that the situation with energy supply may be relatively normal in the western regions, while other regions face serious problems,” the expert noted.

Electricity imports have not increased, despite the increase in guaranteed capacities from December 1 to 2.1 GW (from 1.7 GW - ed.). Experts say that the reason is that price caps are not being increased. The National Energy and Utilities Regulatory Commission has postponed the decision to raise the price cap for electricity several times to increase its imports.

In addition, Ryabtsev notes, that the government is not revising the resolution on the list of consumers protected from disconnections. Currently, companies that import more than 60% of their electricity consumption and critical facilities identified by regional authorities are not cut off from electricity. RBC-Ukraine wrote in the summer that there were many comments on such facilities.

A new draft resolution for determining critical facilities was developed by the Ministry of Energy in mid-November but has not yet been adopted. The previous document from 2018 was practically ineffective, as the procedure for assessing the critical importance of enterprises is complicated, as stated in the explanatory note to the new version of the resolution. “Now it is unclear how the lists of such enterprises are formed, and many strange objects are included,” Riabtsev said.

But even if all these problems are resolved, they will not change the situation dramatically. Blackouts in Ukraine will likely be applied throughout the heating season. Sometimes they may be shorter, sometimes longer.

Today, there is already a steady trend that the peak load on the power system occurs from Tuesday to Friday. On weekends, consumption decreases, and outage periods are reduced by several hours. On Monday, it is also not at its peak, as it accelerates after a two-day decline.

The impact of temperature on outages is also not immediate. An interlocutor of the agency who analyzed the dynamics of consumption noted that its growth occurs gradually in 1-2 days after the weather deteriorates and the temperature drops. During the same time, consumption decreases in the event of warming.

Ukraine will change its approach to scheduling power outages. In particular, each queue will be divided into two sub-queues, and power companies will have up to 30 minutes to connect/disconnect subscribers.