The Ukrainian energy system had a tough time last winter. An absolutely unprecedented situation occurred: for the first time in the world, the enemy systematically attacked power plants and power lines.
The world has never seen attacks on this scale before — the russians fired thousands of missiles at the energy sector, not counting drones, as well as air and artillery attacks in the front-line and border areas. Despite the fact that the system was not completely disrupted, many power generation and transmission facilities were severely damaged.
Meanwhile, everyone started looking for blackout schedules and expecting more outages. How ready is Ukraine's power system for winter? What has and what has not been restored? How has its protection improved? We have decided to talk about this with Ildar Salieiev, CEO of DTEK Energy.
A third of what was working was damaged
— Could you tell us about the circumstances in which the Ukrainian energy sector operated last winter?
These are circumstances that no power system in the world has ever faced. The shelling that took place involved 1,500 missiles and drones. Almost 5 GW of capacity was made inoperable due to enemy attacks. Thermal generation suffered the most.
— Can you specify five GW out of how many?
— For your understanding, at the beginning of the autumn-winter period, the power system had a capacity of about 15 GW. At the end of the last heating season, more than a third of the capacity, or 5 GW, was damaged due to shelling.
We worked all winter under constant attack. As a result, due to enemy shelling, there were accidents in the power grid, disconnections and a large number of users were left without electricity. However, the power engineers restored everything quite promptly.
Our power plants were attacked by the enemy almost fifty times. The damage was of various magnitudes. We even had to rebuild a thermal power plant from scratch 25 times following the shelling, which means, in fact, restoring the entire thermal power plant. We learnt and gained this experience along the way after each shelling, after each strike.
— Do you understand what the tactics were? They hit substations and generating facilities. What were they trying to achieve? Destruction of the facilities? Destruction of the electricity transmission system to consumers?
— The logic was to destabilise the unified energy system. In order to destabilise it, it had to be divided into different parts that were not interconnected… There are transmission systems operated by the NPC Ukrenergo system operator, and there are large substations that it also maintains.
They connect the energy junctions of different regions into a single power grid. The dispatchers always make certain that electrical production is equal to consumption, so the power system is balanced and stable.
Consequently, the enemy attacked substations to splinter the power grid. Their goal was to make sure that one junction had enough capacity but not enough consumption; and the other junction had insufficient capacity but a large demand for electricity. System accidents occur when this imbalance occurs.
Secondly, they hit the manoeuvring capacities. These are thermal power plants, combined heat and power plants and hydro facilities. These are required to balance the power system during peak consumption.
For example, in the morning and in the evening, when the power system experiences the greatest load. In these moments, electricity generation needs to be increased. This is impossible with the basic generation provided solely by nuclear units.
Thus the role of thermal power plants is important here. So the enemy used a tactic to destabilise and disconnect the power system.
— Has DTEK counted the number of attacks on its facilities? What are the losses and how many of your employees were wounded?
— We started having air strikes prior to the autumn and winter period. This is because some of our generating facilities are located close to the war zone. So, in addition to rocket attacks, artillery shelling is also occurring.
Since the start of the full-scale war, the DTEK's thermal power plants have been seriously attacked more than 40 times, three quarters of which occurred last autumn and winter. In total, at the end of the last autumn-winter period, 1.4 GW of capacity was out of operation due to shelling.
But the attacks did not end with the end of the heating season. Another attack on one of our thermal power plants occurred in August. This week Russia shelled one of our thermal power plants again.
“Unfortunately, there were injuries and deaths among our employees. In particular, three employees were killed while at work during the shelling. 32 power engineers were injured.”
“But, again, some of our enterprises are close to the demarcation line. And unfortunately, our people are killed not only while at work but also at home. A few weeks ago, during another shelling of the settlement where one of our power plants is located, a residential building where one of our employees lived was hit. And unfortunately, he was killed in that hit.
The entire power plant cannot be protected, it is thousands of pieces of equipment
— What have you managed to repair so far?
— This year, prior to the beginning of the heat deficit period, we planned to carry out repairs at 19 power units of TPPs. As of today, we have already completed this work at 18 power units. That is, 95% of the planned work has been completed.
We plan to commission one more power unit in the coming days, and we are completing repairs on it. So we are working on schedule. But the repair program is continuing.
In total, we intend to carry out repairs at 27 power units at our plants this year. In terms of restoration, we have been returning capacities to the grid both during the winter and following the end of the heat deficit period. Over the past winter and following the winter, we have returned eight power units damaged by the enemy to the grid.
However, there are significantly damaged power units. They will be repaired this year and next year. And the issue here is a large amount of equipment that needs to be purchased and replaced, as well as a large amount of work that needs to be done.
In order to compensate for those units that cannot be repaired prior to the winter, we have additionally recommissioned two units at the stations. This is almost 500 MW of capacity, or half a gigawatt. This is also additional capacity.
— How do you assess the security of the power system today?
— In terms of protection, the Ukrainian power system is much better protected today than it was at the beginning of the last heat deficit period. These are different levels of protection. Physical protection and protection provided by the air defence system.
And each of these types of protection has been significantly improved over the past year. I really can't go into all the details right now. But now we have experience and we know how we can additionally protect the facilities. And today we have physically protected the main equipment as much as possible.
I can also say that our company has invested UAH 1.3 billion in stocks of critical equipment in case of new russian shelling. We have provided our thermal power plants and mines with backup power supplies. For this purpose, we purchased more than 200 powerful generators.
In addition to the physical protection that we have installed, of course, we have great expectations for the air defence system. And we see that Ukraine is also making progress in this area and improvements are being made. However, we understand that the number of facilities is large, they are all over the country, and in order to shoot down missiles or drones aimed at the Ukrainian power system facilities, a large number of air defence systems are also needed.
We are producing even more, not less, electricity
— How much coal and gas do our thermal power stations and thermal power plants have?
— We use our own coal, which is mined at our mines, to run our power plants. This is the main resource is used to supply our power plants.
We do not use natural gas as our main fuel. Because we have enough coal to run our power plants. I won't give figures, but I can say that, for example, there is even more coal in our power plant warehouses than at this time in 2021.
To be on the safe side, we are importing coal from Poland if we have any additional needs in addition to our own coal production. As of today, we have already delivered almost 49,000 tonnes of the planned 210,000 tonnes of imported fuel to our power plants.
According to our estimates, our power plants will be fully supplied with coal. Once again, the majority of this coal will be domestically produced.
This is the No. 1 priority for us, and the UAH 7.4 billion we have invested in our coal enterprises this year is a proof of that. They are operating at full capacity. They have not reduced production volumes. This will continue to be the case throughout this winter.
— How much electricity will you manage to generate compared to previous periods?
— In the first nine months of this year, our TPPs supplied more than 11 billion kWh of electricity to the power grid. In comparison, this is equivalent to the average consumption of about 3.7 million households over a year.
All our available equipment will be in operation this winter. Unless the shelling continues, the planned balance will be reached as a result of repairs, renovations and additional capacities that we have recommissioned.
“If necessary, we produce as much electricity as in previous periods. For example, during the three summer months, our power plants generated 30% more electricity than in the same period last year.”
If we talk about the hot August, when electricity consumption increased, we generated 35% more electricity than in August 2022.
— I know that the most problematic issue with repairs is the availability of transformers. Especially the 330s. This is expensive equipment which has been in operation for decades. I know it is very difficult to get them because there are not many manufacturers internationally. Where can you get them?
— Obviously, the production of large equipment takes the longest time. Firstly, these are transformers and autotransformers. There is a lot of talk about this because there are a lot of them in operation not only at thermal power plants, at open switchgear of power plants, but also at Ukrenergo's substations.
In addition, there is other large equipment, such as turbines and generators, which were also out of operation during the strikes. But their manufacture takes no less time than the manufacture of autotransformers.
As for the transformer, its production time is significant. It takes at least 6–9 months if there is no waiting list. And if there is a waiting list and the production line is busy, then even more. That is why various manufacturers were involved: both from our country and from external supply channels.
We managed to restore and re-start a lot of them. But there is still that equipment that will be manufactured and delivered next year. However, this will not affect the functionality and capacity of the power plants. If no new shelling occurs, we will manage to supply power to the grid with the equipment, repairs and transformer replacements that have been made.
Restoration will cost billions of hryvnias
— I will not ask about tariffs. You are not the one who sets them. I will ask in a different manner. You have material losses, repairs are very expensive. Does what you receive cover the costs of scheduled and emergency repairs?
— The planned repair estimate for our power plants this year is about UAH 3.9 billion. In order to restore everything that was damaged and destroyed to the level prior to the shelling, we need almost UAH 7 billion. This is a large amount of money. All the work which we have done so far in repairs and reconstruction is done at our own expense.
We have also significantly increased investments in our coal mining enterprises. For instance, the investment program for coal mines to supply coal to power plants this year is costing us UAH 7.4 billion.
This is twice as much as last year. These are significant resources and currently we can only generate these resources from the market, from the products we produce. So these are kilowatt-hours and their price.
Of course, the price on the wholesale market is extremely important for us. It is important for us to ensure that we have the necessary resources for all the work that is done at our enterprises.
— I am not going to ask you if you are in favour of tariff increases, because of course you will say yes.
— We operate exclusively on the wholesale electricity market, which means that this does not apply to the retail market and households, where tariffs are set by the government. On the wholesale market, where electricity is sold to businesses, I am a supporter of market conditions similar to the EU, toward which we are moving.
It's like supply and demand. If demand grows, the price should rise. If there is a surplus of electricity, the price should go down.