Ukrenergo to apply electricity limitation schedules for industrial consumers amid shortages during spring, summer repair campaign in Ukraine

MOSCOW. April 18 (Interfax) - Ukrenergo will have to impose electricity limitation schedules on industrial consumers amid the shortages in the power system during the repair campaign at the power plants this spring and summer, Ukrainian media reported, citing the company's CEO Vladimir Kudritsky as saying during the United News national telethon on Thursday.

The Ukrainian power system is already going through a repair campaign at the power plants, in particular, at the nuclear power plants, and more and more generating capacities will have to be placed under repair over the spring and summer, so there will be a shortage in the power system from time to time, he said.

Ukrenergo is planning to cover it by importing electricity from Europe, and if it is not enough, it will draw emergency aid from neighboring countries or impose certain consumption restriction schedules for the industry.

"At times, the shortage may even exceed the physical capacity of the Ukrainian power system to import electricity from Europe. In that case, no matter how much emergency aid we ask for and how much imports we attract, it still may not be enough. In these situations, consumer restrictions may be used as an additional tool to balance the power system," Kudritsky said.

However, there are no plans yet to impose power supply restrictions on the population. "Currently, we are not planning to apply schedules that would lead to outages of household consumers. This does not concern, unfortunately, Kharkov, where there is a particular situation with damage to almost all power facilities in the city. But in all other regions, we have no plans to impose restrictions on household consumers," Kudritsky said.

The Ukrainian energy sector has lost more than 8 GW in recent months, Prime Minister Denis Shmygal said.

"The energy sector has suffered huge losses in recent months. We have lost more than 6 GW of capacity in our energy system, and there is a risk of even greater losses, last week we lost another two gigawatts," he said.