Ukraine | Looking beyond the war
Ukraine is currently focused on emergency restoration but already its leadership is talking about the country’s potential to be an energy powerhouse for Europe after hostilities end. Janet Wood reports
Above: Power plant and transmission system damage (Photos: DTEK)
Power engineers have been working round the clock to restore supplies after a series of deliberate attacks on Ukrainian infrastructure, with the electricity system a particular target. First Deputy Interior Minister Yevhen Yenin said on 27 December that over 702 critical infrastructure facilities in Ukraine had been hit since the start of the full-scale invasion, including gas pipelines and electrical substations and infrastructure has continued to be a Russian target since then. January 2023 has seen Russian attacks being increasingly focused on power stations, resulting in a capacity deficit of about 4.5 GW at times of peak demand.
Volodymyr Kudrytskiy, chief executive of Ukrenergo, Ukraine’s TSO, told the UK Financial Times that, “the attacks are planned and implemented not only by the Russian military but also by Russian energy specialists,” noting that Russian power engineers know the Ukrainian network very well, because until 2022 the two were interconnected. Unplanned blackouts mean that areas of the country suffer hours without power along with water and communications outages as power cuts hit related infrastructure.
On 23 December Prime Minister of Ukraine Denys Shmyhal praised the country’s power engineers as “ the backbone of Ukraine” as they restore supplies as fast as possible, both across the country after air raids and in territories liberated by the Ukraine armed forces. Power engineers have to carry out the restoration in close co-operation with the armed forces or first responders who have to determine whether it is safe to work. DTEK, a privately owned power company in Ukraine, said that in September- December, energy facilities were subjected to 22 Russian attacks. As a result, 26 energy workers were injured, and three died.
Above: Hitachi Energy transformers donated to Ukrenergo (Photo: Hitachi Energy/Ukrenergo)
After the February invasion, Ukrainian power companies sourcing replacement equipment quickly found out that there was no substantial global reserve of power network assets, according to Vadym Utki, project manager at DTEK. What is more, new assets such as cabling and transformers have a lead time that can be 18 months or more. The challenge in replacing damaged equipment is exacerbated by the fact that parts of the Ukrainian network date back to the USSR period and not all available equipment is compatible. Transformers have been among the assets targeted by Russian strikes and Ukraine did have reserve stocks of 750 kV transformers, but these have now been deployed and engineers now focus on repairing the existing units, the FT reports. However some equipment has come from neighbouring countries such as Lithuania and Azerbaijan, which have both provided transformers. Faced with long lead times, Ukraine has pleaded with power companies and the industry’s supply chain to re-prioritise their production so that Ukraine can receive equipment quickly. That has borne fruit in at least one case, in a deal set up by Hitachi Energy Ukraine, Hitachi
16 | January/February 2023|
www.modernpowersystems.com
Energy Poland and the DTEK Group by which 52 transformers arrived in Ukraine at the end of December. DTEK praised “unprecedented help and support from Hitachi Energy, which has re-ordered its transformer production to ensure the orders for Ukraine are the highest priority” and in addition manufactured and delivered the equipment three times faster than normal. DTEK has previously asked Western power companies decommissioning power assets, such as coal plant, to send decommissioned equipment to Ukraine, and it further offered to send engineers to sites overseas to help with dismantling and removing components that could be used in Ukraine.
Shmyhal said in December that more than 200 cargoes with energy equipment had already arrived. The European Commission and European Energy Community’s Ukraine Energy Support Fund has so far collected €32 million to cover the most urgent needs. The EU Civil Protection Mechanism’s assistance goes beyond generators and transformers, with a wide variety of items such as circuit breakers, wiring and cables, supplies and equipment necessary for the repair, maintenance and functioning of the energy infrastructure. Around 56 500 different items have been sent to Ukraine.
Alongside restoring the network, Ukraine has received hundreds of thousands of generators – some 300 000 in December alone, according to one report. The majority are domestic-sized and small enough to transport in bulk, but there are also larger generator units that can power important facilities such as hospitals or key parts of the water supply network. That has helped Ukraine maintain these key services and also set up ‘resilience centres’ with heat and power in areas that are otherwise blacked out. However, it introduces a new requirement – to
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