Ukrainian Energy Ministry reports power supply problems in Odessa region
MOSCOW. April 1 (Interfax) - While around 10,500 customers in the city of Odessa and the Odessa region were cut off from power supply as of Sunday morning, there was no electricity shortage in the power system as a whole, Ukrainian media reported with reference to the Energy Ministry's social media post.
In the early hours of Sunday, a thermal power plant and over 170,000 customers were disconnected from the grid for a short time, and two biogas power plants and a wind farm also suspended power generation, it said.
Media reported with reference to the Odessa city hall that electric public transport was temporarily not operating because of power supply limitations, with buses replacing them on city routes.
The DTEK energy holding said on social media later that power supply was restored to all customers in Odessa. "Power engineers worked all night to apply voltage to the lines." Mass outages were avoided owing to electricity generated by solar power plants and wind farms, as well as the suspension of electric public transport operations in Odessa.
The Energy Ministry said a 110 kV substation in the Kharkov region and an overhead power transmission line in the Lvov region were disconnected from the grid, which left a settlement without electricity for some time.
Ukraine provided emergency assistance to Poland at the request of its power grid operator, as 300 MW/h of surplus electricity was supplied to Ukraine for an hour on Sunday morning, and the same amount was supplied to Poland from 8:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m.
"There is no electricity shortage in the power grid for now. The energy system's operations are balanced," the Energy Ministry said.
Later on Sunday, Ukrainian media reported with reference to Ukrenergo that engineers had managed to restore power supply to the Kievsky and Khadzhibeisky districts of Odessa, as well as the Odessa suburban area, which had been cut off from power after an Ukrenergo power substation was disconnected from the grid earlier in the day.
As of 1:00 p.m. Sunday, there were no power supply restrictions in Ukraine in general, but if consumption grew, they were possible in the Kharkov and Odessa regions and in Krivoy Rog's industrial area, it said.
At the same time, the Energy Ministry reported following Ukrenergo's similar report that the Kharkov region was reinstating stabilizing outage schedules due to insufficient transmission capacity of trunk grids.