Due to the significant destruction of the energy system and the lack of money and time for restoration, power outages will become a common occurrence for Ukrainians for many years to come. About this reported the edition of The Economist.
“There is too little time left and too few billions of dollars needed to install a few hundred small power plants, rebuild bombed power plants, or build wind and solar farms. Fan power outages will become commonplace," the publication writes.
Experts note that Ukrainians have already learned to adapt to the shortage of electricity. Small businesses have diesel generators. Medium plants have invested in gas turbines and can even sell excess electricity to the national grid. Cafes are open for coworking. All buildings have generators to power the elevators. People buy rechargeable batteries that can be charged and used at home for Wi-Fi connections and USB lamps.
At the same time, DTEK CEO Maksym Timchenko says that 90% of their generating capacity was destroyed this year. Waves of attacks since March have targeted thermal and hydroelectric power plants, as well as, for the first time, solar power plants.
Before the invasion, Ukraine's generating capacity was 36 gigawatts (GW) of electricity. But this year's attacks destroyed 9 gigawatts of capacity. Almost all of the remaining generation comes from nuclear power plants, which the Russians have yet to attack.
In the short term, there is some hope that the damaged power plants can be sufficiently repaired by this winter to produce another 2-3 GW of power, the paper notes. Ukrainian engineers are looking for used equipment from decommissioned Soviet-type power plants in Europe. But it is not clear how realistic it is.
