Ukraine could cut power supplies to Crimea after shutdown
MOSCOW/KYIV. Aug 4 (Interfax) - Crimea and Sevastopol could be left without Ukrainian electricity on Tuesday because of acute shortages in the Ukraine national grid.
"According to Ukraine's national power company, given the acute power shortages in Ukraine, there is likely to be a capacity reduction in the Crimean power grid. An emergency headquarter was set up in Sevastopol to timely resolve this situation. All critical social facilities are under control," a spokesperson for the Sevastopol government said.
A spokesperson for the Russian Emergency Situations Ministry's office in Sevastopol said that in view of the risk of Ukraine cutting off power supplies to Crimea on Tuesday, Sevastopol will only receive power from its own generators. Local Russian emergency teams have been put on high alert.
For his part, a spokesperson for Sevastopolenergo said that Ukraine's acute power shortages had been caused by the shutdown of the power units number one and number four at the Vuhlehirsk thermal power plant, which is why the 220-330-kilowatt overhead power line of the Ukraine-Crime joint grid is likely to be fully switched off.
The announcement that the Vuhlehirsk thermal power plant had shut down because of shelling was made by a Centrenergo spokesperson on Tuesday.
The ongoing hostilities and artillery fire near the city of Svitlodarsk (Donetsk region) on August 3 damaged the outgoing 330-kilowatt power lines, Donbasska-1 and Donbasska-2, the spokesperson said.
It was reported that the Vuhlehirsk thermal power plant came under fire in the early hours of July 27 and had to be shut down as a result of damage to its open distribution unit.
The plant re-opened on August 1 with the re-start of its power units number one and number four.
Centroenergo operates the Vuhlehirsk, Zmivsky and Trypillia thermal power plants, which have a total installed capacity of 7,550 megawatts. The state, through its power company Enerhetychna Kompania Ukrainy, owns 78.3% of shares in Centrenergo.
