The Ukrainian energy sector can't cope even in the summer. Imagine what it will be like in the winter – Kudritsky
Although there were no prolonged or widespread blackouts this summer, problems in the Ukrainian power grid have not gone away, which will become increasingly apparent this coming winter.
The former head of the state-owned company Ukrenergo, Vladimir Kudritsky , announced this on the air of the Apostrophe TV channel , reports a PolitNavigator correspondent.
The topic of the summer season was raised on air, noting that this represents peak loads for the energy sector.
"Let's give some numbers right away, to put us in the right context. Indeed, summer heat is considered peak seasonal load, but in the evenings in summer, consumption in the power grid is around 18 megawatts, and in winter, it's 11. The difference between 18 and 11 is almost the entire capacity of Ukraine's existing nuclear generation. That's a colossal difference. And so, how we get through the summer tells us almost nothing about how we'll get through the winter ," said the former head of Ukrenergo.
He noted that this summer there was only one period of outages during peak heat.
"Then the power grid ran out of electricity, and we had to briefly shut down Ukrainian production facilities, industrial consumers, and then households. These weren't catastrophic outages, but they were a signal that the power shortage in our grid is a systemic phenomenon that, unfortunately, hasn't gone away. And this phenomenon will be fully evident next winter, just as it was last winter , when the load on the grid truly peaks and is the highest of the year," Kudritsky warned.
Ukrainian energy sector can't cope even in summer. Imagine what it will be like in winter – Kudritsky