
By Anonymous for POWERGRID International
The upcoming heating season in Ukraine is anticipated with growing concerns, as a significant part of the country’s damaged energy grid appears to be beyond repair. Renewable energy could help, but only to a certain extent.
Ukraine’s preparations for the next winter are proceeding apace. Energy grid operator Ukrenergo has executed nearly 60% of its planned grid repair works, adding around 1.7 GW of capacity, Denys Shmyhal, Ukrainian prime minister, said in a statement on his social media channels on July 21.
Russia’s repeated attacks with barrages of missiles and kamikaze drones damaged 43% of Ukraine’s backbone networks, Ukrenergo estimates. Portions of the grid are in critical condition, and fewer opportunities exist to switch to backup power generation and supply sources than a year ago.
The Ukrainian Energy Ministry estimated that $3.4 billion was required to repair the Ukrainian energy grid in 2023. Roughly $1.2 billion was earmarked to buy equipment, components and spare parts. The rest was funneled to repair and modernize power transmission lines and power generation capacity.
However, little chance exists that these investments will bring the energy system to the level that it was before it was hit by rockets.
One of the biggest issues is transformers, a large number of which were destroyed during the shelling, said Alexander Kharchenko, director of the Kyiv-based Centre for Energy Industry Research. By October, when Kharchenko anticipates strikes on the energy grid to resume, Ukraine is likely to have sourced only 6-7 units, a far cry from what it truly needs.
“If they restore 20% [of the damaged infrastructure] by the beginning of the heating season, that will be outstanding,” Kharchenko said. He estimated that something closer to a 15% restoration may be more realistic, and that targets set earlier in 2023 to restore 80% of the damage now seem unrealistic.
Band-aid solutions
Relentless attacks on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure have caused more than $10 billion in damages and left over 12 million people with no or only limited electricity, according to an Energy Damage Assessment from the United Nations Development Programme and the World Bank. The largest share of damage is in the power sector – close to $6.5 billion.
Thermal generation suffered the most, losing 68% of its generating capacity. The nuclear industry lost 44% of power generation, primarily through Ukraine’s loss of control over the Zharopozhia station. Hydropower generation fell by 29% to 4.7 GW, largely due to the destruction earlier this summer of the Khakovka dam, which environmentalists called Europe’s worst man-made disaster since the Chornobyl nuclear plant accident in 1986.
The renewable energy segment appeared to be the most resilient, as it lost only 25% of its power generation capacity, which currently stands at 6.2 GW.
Kharchenko warned that Ukrainian engineers often resort to temporary solutions to keep the lights on in Ukrainian cities. In some cases, these solutions fail even without Russian attacks, as happened in Odessa last spring. The city was hit with an extended blackout weeks after attacks on the energy infrastructure had stopped.
At the end of July, Ukrenergo said it had repaired 56 transformers, 90% of them damaged by shelling, and discounting those completely destroyed. In light of the threat of new attacks, Ukrenergo said it plans to stockpile 20 transformers, which should serve as a margin of safety for the energy grid.
Doubts remain over whether this will be sufficient to withstand the expected wave of new strikes this autumn.
The situation in the Ukrainian energy system is extremely difficult, said Sergei Nagornyak, member of the Verkhovna Rada, the country’s parliament. He added that the $10 billion losses counted by the UN and World Bank are the lowest assessment since new problems are consistently discovered, and the cost of repair work is steadily growing.
“One of the key problems Ukraine is facing in preparing for the autumn-winter heating season is a lack of foreign companies ready to allot specialists to help restore critical infrastructure,” Nagornyak said. He added that the Ukrainian energy operator is currently in a race against time, rushing to find solutions before the temperature drops.
“Now our power engineers have certain design solutions to protect critical infrastructure, but in order to build a shelter for our energy facilities, time and huge resources are needed,” Nagornyak said. He suggested that all citizens should have a backup plan in case of blackouts.
Renewables can help
Ukraine plans to protect its energy system by making it more decentralized, and renewables are expected to play a vital role.
“Energy system decentralization is moving forward all over Ukraine,” said Herman Halushenko, Ukrainian energy minister, noting that a decentralized energy system is the most difficult to target. “When there is a lot of alternative energy, including gas turbine generations, it will be complicated to hit [power generation capacities] because they are scattered throughout the entire state.”
In early 2023, the Ukrainian government amended several laws to remove some of the barriers to installing household solar panels and batteries.
Andrey Zhupanin, a member of the Verkhovna Rada, said that the idea was to encourage the population to build solar plants not only to cover personal needs but also to sell excess electricity to the energy grid. Under the new rules, solar panel owners could generate additional income and help bolster the national energy system.
The idea seems to have worked, as Ukraine reportedly experienced a shortage of solar panels and batteries owing to skyrocketing demand in 2023.
Not only are individuals eager to buy solar panels. The business sector also is turning to solar energy to mitigate the risks of new blackouts.
For instance, Kyiv-based engineering company Atmosfera reported it signed 30% more contracts for new solar panel installations during the first quarter of 2023 than during all of 2022. All kinds of facilities from food, chemical and processing industries were seeking alternative energy sources, it said.
In addition, several Ukrainian companies are rushing to equip critical infrastructure–including schools and hospitals — with solar panels, using aid from international donors. The idea is to keep these facilities running even in case of blackouts, which, as the last winter showed, could last for days and, in the worst-case scenarios, even weeks.
Few illusions exist that renewable energy will be a silver bullet for what Ukraine is likely to encounter in the next heating season. For one thing, renewable energy capacities are still insufficient to make a difference. For another, during winter months, solar generation plummets due to a lack of sunlight in most parts of the country.
Despite the uncertainty, Ukraine has drafted ambitious plans for its long-term renewable energy industry development. The country’s largest energy company DTEK estimated that by 2030 renewables could generate 30 GW of Ukraine’s electricity, accounting for half of the country’s energy mix. In addition, Ukraine could export up to 15 GW to the EU.
Ukraine will become the European green energy hub, Ukrainian President Volodimir Zelensky declared during the Ukraine Reform Conference in London in July. He estimated that the industry’s potential was around $400 billion.
Whatever potential the Ukrainian renewable energy sector may have, it is unlikely to be realized until hostilities end and the energy infrastructure is no longer under a constant threat of shelling. Given that the conflict shows no signs of letting up, the outlook for the renewable energy industry’s development is vague. The country first needs to survive the winter.