By Andrian Prokip, UIM expert, head of the Energy programme
On the morning of August 26, Russian forces launched a large-scale attack on the Ukrainian energy system. What are the consequences of the shelling and when can we expect the situation to stabilize?
Predicting the development of the Ukrainian energy sector has always been a challenging and thankless task. In particular, the inconsistency of the government’s energy policy led to the fact that many plans and strategies were not implemented.
War and energy terror have only made forecasting more difficult. One never knows when a massive attack might occur, how much damage will be done to the energy infrastructure and, as a result, the extent of shortages and outages.
A similar situation occurred recently. The first half of last week was marked by shortages and outages. Ukraine received emergency aid from the EU twice. However, the second half of the week saw some relief as the heat subsided and demand fell. In addition, on Friday Energoatom connected a unit of the nuclear power plant to the grid after scheduled maintenance. Unexpectedly, there were no outages and on Sunday we did not import electricity for several hours for the first time in many weeks.
Realizing the dynamics of the situation in the energy system, system operator Ukrenergo announced on Friday, August 23, the possibility of allowing export during periods of surplus. This should happen during the day, while active solar power generation ensures a surplus. To balance the energy system, an order should be given to restrict the operation of solar power plants.
However, the war changed these plans, and on Monday morning the surpluses were replaced by acute shortages and emergency outages lasting several hours – the energy system suffered one of the most massive attacks since the beginning of the energy terror, which has been ongoing since mid-September 2022. The attack targeted substations – both power transmission systems and individual power plants, including the Kyiv Hydroelectric Power Station, with video footage of the damage circulating on the Internet. There was also significant damage to distribution networks in several regions. In total, damage to energy infrastructure was reported from 15 regions.
It is safe to say that the aim of the attack was to cause a “blackout” in at least part of the country. The consequences of this shelling complicated the transmission of electricity from the western regions to central and eastern Ukraine and posed additional challenges to the energy system.
There is currently no reliable data on the extent of the power outages. However, there is hope that the situation will normalize somewhat in the next few days and we will return to a regime of predictable schedules.
In September, the situation could even improve significantly and there may be no more outages at all. However, it is difficult to make predictions here too. It is almost certain that the winter will be a challenge.
