Page 47 - Ukraine OUTLOOK 2025

• 7.3 Power
Ukraine’s electricity imports increased more than fivefold in 2024. Ukraine’s electricity import increased more than fivefold in 2024 to 4.4mn MWh, ExPro consulting company’s electricity monitoring data showed on January 2.
After the US ran out of money for Ukraine in January 2024, Ukraine quickly ran out of air defence missiles, leaving its skies open to Russian missile attacks. A barrage in January exhausted most of the remaining air defence ammo and another barrage in March destroyed almost all of Ukraine’s non-nuclear power and heating assets – half of the total.
Russia has taken out 35 GW of Ukraine’s electricity generation capability since the beginning of the war, reducing generation from 55 GW to 20 GW. Already in summer Ukrenergo has introduced rolling blackouts in a dozen regions as installed capacity is not enough to meet demand.
Pre-war Ukraine had a total installed electricity generating capacity of 55 GW. The breakdown by type was roughly as follows:
Nuclear Power: Around 13.8 GW (about 25% of total capacity). Ukraine had 15 nuclear reactors across five working nuclear power plants (NPPs), although the largest in Europe, Zaporizhzhia NPP, has fallen into Russian hands.
Thermal Power (Coal and Gas): Approximately 23 GW (about 42% of total capacity), concentrated in industrial regions, but almost all of this has been destroyed or damaged in 2024.
Hydropower: Roughly 6 GW (about 11% of total capacity).
Key facilities included the Dnipro cascade of hydropower plants (HPPs), much of which has also been destroyed or damaged. Renewables (wind, solar and biomass): Approximately 9 GW (around 16% of total capacity). Solar power dominated renewables with significant capacity, followed by wind power. However, many of these installations have been dismantled and taken to Russia.
Ukraine's EU allies have allocated hundreds of millions of euros to repair the energy sector, but at best this aid will restore about 1 GW of capacity – and only if Russia ceases its attacks, which at the time of writing it had not done.
The energy sector suffered direct damage and indirect financial losses worth $56.2bn, while the needs for restoration, which involve the complete reconstruction of destroyed objects in line with the principle of "Rebuild better than it was", amount to $50.5bn, according to Kyiv School of Economics (KSE). The greatest losses were caused by the destruction of electricity generation facilities ($8.5bn), main electricity transmission lines ($2.1bn), as well as oil and gas infrastructure ($3.3bn).
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