Ukraine has now gone through a month and a half of the heating season. In comparison to last year's winter, the Ukrainian energy system has gone through this period without any major imbalances. But one doesn't need to be a prophet to understand that the main challenges are still ahead. Forecasters are predicting another drop in temperatures, while authorities have repeatedly warned of the enemy's readiness to continue with its terror against the power system.
The enemy made one of these targeted but large-scale attempts on the night of 25 November. On that day, Kyiv was attacked by a record number of Shaheds. However, the air defence system repelled the attack, and the power engineers managed to restore power on the same day in areas affected by the outages caused by the shelling.
The “second season” of energy terror has also started for DTEK's thermal generation system. Over the past month and a half, one of our company's frontline thermal power plants has been attacked five times (six times as of 6 December — IF-U). But we along with all of the country's power engineers have been preparing for this battle for many months.
Everything possible was restored, power units were repaired and prepared for the increased winter operations, critical equipment and fuel reserves were established while the security of the plants was bolstered.
Even more was happening “behind the scenes.” These “actions” have not been widely announced. But they allowed us to maintain the reliability of thermal generation earlier. I am confident that it will allow us to now get through the extremely difficult winter. Thermal generation bears the lion's share of responsibility for the reliable operation of the power system. These are just some of the lessons and challenges of the war that our employees have experienced in the fight for electricity.
A non-trivial experience
Over the 651 days of the war, thousands of missiles and drones have flown over the heads of power engineers. But even when power plants are being attacked, critical personnel have to stay at the plant in order to keep it running. And often our employees behaved like real heroes.
Power engineers repeatedly had to extinguish fires on their own immediately after the bombs hit until the arrival of firefighters. There were cases when TPP workers spent three days at the plant to eliminate the results of shelling.
Or they powered TPP equipment from a nearby hydroelectric power plant. Or they worked up to their waists in machine oil to save the plant. Or they used only the light from a pocket flashlight to avoid attracting the enemy's attention. Or they provided first aid to those seriously wounded as a result of enemy attacks.
Due to all these extraordinary efforts, the power engineers managed to rebuild TPPs from scratch 25 times after the shelling and in effect completely restored their operations.
These actions and the work of our power engineers are truly worth being proud of. Unfortunately, this non-trivial experience also has a tragic aspect.
Three power engineers were killed and 32 were injured during attacks on our TPPs.
New techniques
Since last autumn, when the massive shelling of the energy sector began, our TPPs have survived 37 hostile attacks. The experience of the last heat deficit period and the consequences of the attacks forced Ukrainian power engineers to be extremely flexible and use new methods to protect themselves.
Just like power grid engineers who had to find ways to supply consumers via backup lines after each shelling, our thermal power plant engineers also had to find ways to continue wartime generation.
What are these methods? In addition to the restoration and scheduled repairs carried out at the TPPs, these include the decommissioning and modernisation of idle units and the “transfer” of transformers from units taken out of service prior to the war.
Another challenge is to improve the safety of power facilities. We ensured the physical protection of thermal power plants. Although it might not protect against attacks, it can minimise their scale and consequences.
Hence, we placed high expectations on the “preventive” power of the Ukrainian air defence system. It is encouraging that our Air Forces pay great attention to the protection of the energy infrastructure and lease additional air defence systems from our international partners for this purpose.
A crisis is an opportunity
To ensure the stable operation of thermal power plants, we need to supply them with our own coal. And someone has to mine this coal.
Almost one in four DTEK Energy miners has now left the coal industry for the Armed Forces. They are now defending Ukraine. But the need for coal has not disappeared.
Therefore, to replace those employees who left to defend the country, we are actively recruiting internally displaced persons who were forced to leave their hometowns because of the war. There are more than three thousands of them. Most of them were not mining specialists and were retrained on the job. Amongst the new employees, there are many young people who found their first job at Ukrainian mines and veteran miners aged 45 years and more who had previously taken a well-deserved rest.
Women in the mines
“We can do this!” A well-known American propaganda poster from the Second World War had this title. On it, “Rosie the Riveter” called on American housewives to work in factories.
In the current Russian-Ukrainian war, our women expressed their willingness to go underground to support the mines and replace the men who went to the front-line.
They work in auxiliary jobs that do not involve physical activity. Just like in the Second World War, women are once again strengthening production and inspiring others to keep the momentum going.
Changing traditional suppliers
The war destroyed our usual logistics. We were forced to review our supply chain processes. After all, the industrial regions of the country are now almost on the front-line. Major production facilities are damaged, destroyed or shut down. But mines require a constant supply of equipment, materials and spare parts.
In the end, the supplier to mine puzzle had to be put together anew. We bought equipment from somewhere and learnt to make the required equipment ourselves.
Our machine development facilities, which provide for the equipment requirements of miners, were amongst the first to relocate production to safer regions in the first months of the war.
New suppliers had to be found abroad as well.
Generators for mines and TPPs
Power outages have a critical impact on mine operations and miner safety. A mine needs electricity like a person needs air. The equipment depends on it, including the pumping of water so that it doesn't interfere with work, but most importantly, it provides ventilation so that people can breathe underground.
When the power goes out, we have to evacuate 300–400 people from each mine and support the company's operations.
The purchase of more than two hundred powerful generators was helpful. This winter, they will serve as backup power sources for the mines and TPPs.
Concentration of enrichment capacities
The fuel used to power our TPPs must be of the highest quality. That is why run-of-mine coal needs to have the non-combustible impurities removed, which is what the enrichment process is all about. Before the war, we worked with both our own and other companies. However, considering that many enrichment plants are located in the east and the logistics were risky, we had to increase the capacity of our own plants. Already in 2023, we have increased their production at one of our factories by 1.5 times to supply TPPs with the required quality of fuel.
Instead of an epilogue
No one can predict with certainty what this winter will be like. Many factors will affect this, ranging from weather conditions to the scale of enemy attacks.
However, I am confident that the experience gained in the struggle on the energy front and the superhuman efforts of energy workers and the military in preparing for the new season will not allow the enemy to achieve their aim to plunge Ukraine into darkness this time.
They failed on 23 November, they failed later and they will fail now.
Believe in power engineers, believe in the Armed Forces, believe in our Victory!