Ukraine’s power grid and energy system is expected to withstand Russia’s attacks this winter, with small, distributed power plants rapidly deployed to strengthen the grid and reduce outages.
Despite Russia’s massive attacks on Ukraine’s energy and gas systems, a complete collapse this winter is not expected.
This opinion was expressed on Espreso TV by former head of “Ukrenergo,” Volodymyr Kudrytskyy.
“I don’t believe that our energy system will collapse this winter or that there will be catastrophic consequences from enemy attacks, such as long-term national blackouts. I don’t think this will happen. We will still get through the next winter. Of course, the duration of outages and the extent of damage to our facilities, which Russia may cause, remain open questions,” Kudrytskyy explained.
The former head of “Ukrenergo” emphasized the need to develop small power plants across Ukraine. Their distribution would significantly reduce system deficits, even amid ongoing attacks.
“Another important issue in this situation is the development of distributed generation, which we at ‘Ukrenergo’ also proposed to implement in 2023 after the first difficult winter. This concept is based on the fact that we have 15–20 large Soviet-era power plants that provide more than 80% of the country’s electricity production. It is clear that these power plants are important targets for the Russians, and they need only a few missiles at each such facility to take a significant share of generation out of service for some time. Therefore, instead of 20 large power plants, we should have 1,000 small ones and disperse them across the territory of Ukraine. That way they will be much harder to destroy,” he emphasized.
According to Kudrytskyy, it is also important today to speed up the deployment of such generation.
“The pace of deploying this generation needs to be sharply increased. After all, when the Russians attack the energy system in frontline territories, some facilities will inevitably be damaged. However, if we have many small power plants connected to the regional grids, it will make it much easier to withstand such attacks and reduce system deficits, especially in the morning and evening,” Kudrytskyy concluded.
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