Stricter version of power outage schedules may be applied after temporary pause: what to prepare for

In August-October, the duration of forced power outages in Ukraine will be significantly reduced. However, the situation will deteriorate significantly in winter: the scenario of July, when outages lasted 7 hours in a row due to the heat, may be repeated, this time due to cold.

"In August-October, the situation will improve significantly due to the end of the heat wave and the completion of repairs at NPPs, TPPs and HPPs," said Volodymyr Omelchenko, Director of Energy Programs at the Razumkov Center, "However, in winter, the duration of restrictions may be at the July level due to low temperatures. And this forecast is valid in the absence of new significant destructions of energy facilities."

Yuriy Korolchuk is also confident that Ukrainian consumers will not have enough electricity in winter and cites specific figures. According to him, during the summer heatwave and repair peaks, the deficit in the power grid was not the "official" 1.5-2.5 GW, but twice as much. The Ukrainian power system could produce only 8-9 GW of electricity out of the required 13 GW.

"Even with a deficit of 2.5 GW, electricity restrictions in critical regions would not exceed about 6 hours a day," explains Korolchuk, "Thus, Ukrenergo can make all the wishful thinking it wants, but it will not help in the winter. There will be problems even if 8-9 NPP units are in operation, 2000 MW of thermal generation and 1000 MW of hydro generation are repaired, and the winter is warm."

In winter, the power system will have 11 GW of guaranteed capacity, while during the period of frost and seasonal critical energy consumption, we will need 15-16 GW, the expert continues. So, unfortunately, we will again have a deficit of 4-5 GW, but due to the peculiarities of the power system functioning in winter, there will probably be more outages.

The scale of outages in July gives us an idea of how we will live in winter, provided that there is no significant worsening of the capacity deficit due to new possible shelling, agrees energy expert Andrian Prokip.

According to him, the baseline scenario for winter is a blackout of about the same scale as in July. The situation may be somewhat better in winter if there are no new attacks and losses and energy companies and industrial consumers have time to build more power generation capacity. But the opposite may happen if additional capacity is lost as a result of new shelling.

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