Page 66 - UKRRptNov21

of their target level for this time of year, Ukrenergo, the state-owned electricity transmission system operator, warned yesterday. “The situation with the accumulation of coal is deteriorating,” Ukrenergo warned, referring to thermal power plants. “Coal reserves in TPP warehouses are extremely low.”
Due to the coal shortage, 24 units of thermal power plants have stopped generating electricity, idling 8.5 GW of capacity, Ukrenergo reported yesterday. While coal shipments are to arrive by ship this fall, Ukraine’s 11 online nuclear power reactors are stepping into the breach. The Energy Ministry, owner of Ukrenergo, posts on Facebook: “The basic generation is nuclear -- nuclear power plants produce more than half of all electricity in the country on a regular schedule.”
A skeptical view comes from Belarus, currently clashing with Ukraine’s government and historically the biggest victim of fallout from Soviet Ukraine’s 1986 nuclear fire at Chernobyl, 30 km upwind from Belarus. “[Ukraine’s] nuclear power plants are stretched to their limit,” Nikolai Shchekin, a Belarusian sociologist, charges in a commentary relayed yesterday by BelTa, Belarus’ state news agency. “The Zaporizhia nuclear power plant is on its last legs. It has not been reconstructed for 30 years. Experiments have been staged there. Who knows what happened? There are also many problems at the Rivne nuclear power plant.” Ukrainian officials say the nation’s 15 reactors comply with international safety standards.
The level of Electricity imports since April 2021 has been extremely low, reported Ukrenergo. In September, the total volume of imports of 0.028mn kWh. The lowest amount since the commencement of the new market in July 2019. Electricity exports have also continued to decline since July 2021 and amounted to 304.3mn kWh. For the first nine months of 2021, the volume of electricity exports exceeds imports by more than 2.7 times - 2,779mn kWh against 1,014mn kWh.
With gas and coal prices hitting record levels, some electricity producers have shut down, Energy Minister Herman Galushchenko told the Rada during question period Friday. “Producers producing 25% of electricity from hydrocarbons have stopped production due high gas prices,” he said. This has knocked out 3,000 MW of installed capacity.
After coal reserves at thermal power plants shrank by 6% in the middle of October, total stocks now are only 26% of target levels. To preserve coal for heating, the Energy Ministry may order thermal plants to stop burning coal for electricity. For electricity, the Ministry plans to run 14 of Ukraine’s 15 nuclear reactors. To alleviate the coal shortage, Ukraine has signed contracts to import 4 million tons of coal – five times current stocks.
To compensate, the government is ramping nuclear production up by 12% over last year, he said. Already, a record 14 of the nation’s 15 reactors are working. The Minister said: “In the conditions of the rapid rise in the price of hydrocarbons and their total deficit in this autumn-winter period, we rely on nuclear generation.”
66 UKRAINE Country Report November 2021 www.intellinews.com