The complete destruction of the Trypillia Thermal Power Plant (TPP), which occurred on the night of April 11 as a result of enemy missile attacks, caused enormous damage to the entire energy system of Ukraine.
This is stated in the article by Apostrophe.
"The situation is critical in terms of ensuring the balance of electricity," former Minister of Fuel and Energy of Ukraine Ivan Plachkov told the publication, recalling that not only the Trypillia TPP but also most other thermal power plants in the country were destroyed.
Andrian Prokip, Director of Energy Program at the Ukrainian Institute for the Future, told Apostrophe that after the massive shelling in March, the national power system was balanced by importing electricity. It may be possible to continue doing so in the near future, but it will definitely become more difficult.
"In fact, the entire thermal generation sector has suffered serious losses. There is a lot of damage at hydroelectric power plants, so we have limited balancing capacities, which means we are approaching the blackout schedules. It will be especially difficult with the onset of hot weather. If we get through the day more or less thanks to increased solar generation, we will face problems from 6 p.m. to night. It's too early to make forecasts for the winter. At temperatures of minus five to minus ten, there will be a very serious deficit in the power system," explained Prokip.
The situation with energy supply in Ukraine can be improved by importing electricity from the EU. This will probably have to be done primarily during peak consumption hours.
"The other thing is that we are physically limited in the permitted capacity we can import. Our permitted import capacity from Europe is 1.7 gigawatts. Two weeks ago, we had hours when the capacity was 1.5 gigawatts. That is, electricity imports are already close to the permitted limit of the grid's capacity, and in the current situation, it may soon reach it," Prokip said. Prokip said.
He added that Ukraine has already started negotiations with the EU on the possibility of increasing the capacity of electricity imports, and now it can only hope that these negotiations will be successful.
Earlier, we reported that the energy infrastructure in four regions of Ukraine was damaged due to massive Russian missile strikes.