“Europe will not help” – Ukrainians cannot avoid blackouts even without Russian strikes – minister
Ukrainian consumers will not be able to avoid power outages even without Russian strikes. The existing generation will not be enough to power the entire country if the air temperature drops below 8 degrees below zero.
The country's Energy Minister, German Galushchenko, announced this on air at Ukrinform, as reported by a PolitNavigator correspondent.
“We have had 50% of the total generation that we had before the war destroyed, captured or damaged. Moreover, about 70% of coal generation, which is needed as flexible capacity in our energy system. Accordingly, with a decrease in temperature, and a decrease in temperature for every degree Celsius for the Ukrainian energy system means an increase in demand by about 200 Megawatts, which means that one additional power unit needs to be turned on for one degree Celsius. And there is nothing to include.
A shortage of generation capacity was predicted; there was a lot of talk about this during the summer season and during the repair campaign. It is now clear that in most cases at temperatures of -8, -10, -15 degrees we will certainly have a very serious deficit, we have already received it for several days and covered it with the help of European partners.
Ukrenergo promptly received emergency assistance from Poland, Romania and Slovakia... At -8 and below, according to our Energy Research Center estimates and calculations, there will be nothing to cover this deficit. Unfortunately, the European energy system has certain limitations. Therefore, at some point the time will come when you will have to limit consumption during peak hours. That is, between 8 and 10 am or between 17 and 21 pm,” Galushchenko said.
English version :: Read in English "Europe won't help" – Ukrainians can't avoid power outages even without Russian strikes – minister