Recent Russian attacks have caused significant damage to Ukraine's power transmission system, but a complete collapse is unlikely, the head of Ukraine's National Energy Company "Ukrenergo" said. - Volodymyr Kudrytsky, quoted by Reuters, writes BTA.
Since March 22, Russian forces have been attacking Ukrainian thermal and hydroelectric power plants, as well as the main grids, on an almost daily basis, leading to blackouts in many areas of the country.
„Their goal (of the Russians) is to cause blackouts in some major Ukrainian cities, and our goal is to prevent that,” Kudrytsky said in an interview with Reuters.
The county's largest private power company, DTEK, said the attacks damaged five of its six power plants, which lost 80 percent of their capacity.
The thermal power plants and other facilities of DTEK, which provides about a quarter of the country's energy needs, have been repeatedly hit by Russian missiles, drones and artillery during the more than two-year war.
The rocket attacks also caused significant damage to Ukraine's largest hydroelectric plant in Zaporozhye, as well as the Kaniv and Dniester stations.
Most of Ukraine's electricity is produced by three nuclear power plants, but thermal and hydropower generation are key to balancing the system during peak demand.
"The biggest concern now is the state of power generation, the part of it that balances the system - hydro and thermal power generation. The scale of the damage reported by DTEK is obviously global (large-scale)”, said Kudrytsky.
But he pointed out that the country's energy system is not close to collapse.
„We are definitely not one step away from collapse. A collapse is an uncontrolled shutdown of most or all of the power system. This has not happened and will not happen, we consider this scenario unlikely”, he said.
Kudritsky believes that Ukraine may face "local problems" in separate areas, such as in the eastern city of Kharkiv or in Odessa.
The energy system of the Soviet Union, and later Ukraine, traditionally relied on huge power plants, but such facilities are extremely difficult to defend against missile fire.
„First of all, we have to think about our energy mix and we have to think about how to protect our electricity production from (air) strikes,” Kudrycki said.
This would only be possible if Ukraine built hundreds of small power plants across the country.
„This process must begin immediately,”, he said.