A miracle despite sabotage: why the energy sector was not ready for a severe winter

The current situation in Ukraine’s energy sector remains tense due to constant attacks, but the country manages to avoid a critical shortage of resources. At the same time, Ukraine could significantly reduce the duration of power outages if the current government implemented a distributed generation program in a timely manner.

This opinion was expressed on the air of “Pryamoy” by investment banker Serhiy Fursa and People’s Deputy from “European Solidarity” Volodymyr Ariev.

Fursa noted that despite the harsh winter, gas and coal reserves currently exceed last year’s levels, and the main problem remains damage to infrastructure.

“What is truly a miracle, the fact that we are sitting here and now with light, and light appears in the homes of Ukrainians, is that we must understand that the presence of light is a miracle in the current situation, not its absence,” he added.

According to the investment banker, energy workers are forced to work in extremely difficult conditions, ignoring technical standards for the sake of quickly restoring networks. He also mentioned the tragic death of one of the heads of Ukrenergo, emphasizing that specialists risk their lives every day under shelling. The weather forecast is currently a positive factor, as warming reduces the load on the system and promotes hydrogeneration.

At the same time, Volodymyr Ariev, a People’s Deputy from the “European Solidarity” party, believes that Ukraine could significantly reduce the duration of power outages if it implemented the distributed generation program in a timely manner. At the same time, he accused relevant officials of disrupting the supply of cogeneration units from Japan, which were supposed to provide heat and electricity to the southern regions.

“If they were installed starting in 2023… if our entire infrastructure was fenced, if the government and Zelensky were interested in this, then we would already have protected small power plants, they would be located inside the entire power grid throughout Ukraine… But we have no way out now. We will definitely have planned outages for the next 2-3 years,” Ariev explains.

According to him, instead of building a network of small stations that are harder to hit by shelling, priority was given to dubious projects in the nuclear energy sector. In particular, the MP mentioned an attempt to purchase Russian power units in Bulgaria for the Khmelnytskyi NPP.

Ariev emphasized that the creation of energy “islands” with their own generation in each district is the only way to overcome the 5 GW deficit.

Meanwhile, emergency power outages continue to be imposed in most regions of Ukraine due to the significant complication of the situation in the power system. The reason was the consequences of massive missile and drone attacks and the emergency failure of several generation facilities.

At the same time, in Kyiv, in the coming days, they plan to gradually switch from emergency to hourly power outages and reach the predicted schedules of up to 3-4 shifts. According to the Minister of Energy of Ukraine Denys Shmyhal, the situation in the capital’s power system remains difficult due to a significant capacity deficit. At the same time, thanks to the coordinated work of Ukrenergo and distribution system operators, a tendency towards partial stabilization is being recorded.

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