Page 11 - UKRRptJul24

2.4 Ukraine looks to Europe to increase power imports this winter
Russia has taken out 35 GW of Ukraine’s electricity generation capability since the beginning of the war, decreasing generation from 55 GW to 20 GW. Already Ukrenergo has introduced rolling blackouts in a dozen regions as installed capacity is not enough to meet demand. And it still summer.
Fears over what will happen this winter when the heating season starts are looming large.
“The problem is that the power generation is also the source of heat,” says Professor Tom O’Donnell, a fellow with the Wilson Centre and advisor on energy to several European governments. “You take the exhaust gases from the power generation, which are hot, and use that to heat water that goes into central heating. If you have no power, you have no heat either.” Russia launched barrage of missile strikes on Ukraine’s energy sector in January, which only intensified in March after Ukraine ran out of air defence missiles, leaving its main power generation installations defenceless. Since March 2024, Russia has destroyed 9.2 GW of electricity generation capacity.
The Dnipro Hydroelectric Power Plant in the Zaporizhzhia region, Ukraine’s largest hydropower plant, has been hit several times since March and is out of actions for at least two years. The power plant that serves Kyiv, the Trypilska thermal power plant, was flattened completely in April. And the bombardment continues unabated. Some 75% of Ukraine’s thermal generating capacity is now unlikely to be available this winter. In one day on June 1 alone, Ukraine lost another 1.2 GW of generation and suffered severe damage to the gas transportation system for underground storage facilities in western Ukraine, which may affect both domestic use and exports of gas to the EU.
In the short-term the only way Ukraine can get through this coming winter is to import power from the EU. By a miracle, Ukraine was connected to the EU
11 UKRAINE Country Report July 2024 www.intellinews.com