Few weeks enough to restore Ukrainian power system's functionality - Ukrenergo CEO

MOSCOW. Oct 21 (Interfax) - The complete restoration of the Ukrainian power grids the way they functioned before October 10 would take a long period of time, but power supply can be ensured at a reliable enough level within a few weeks, Ukrenergo CEO Vladimir Kudritsky said.

"Restoring the initial functionality of power grids would take some time, this is not days and not even weeks, but a few weeks would be enough to restore the safe functioning of our power system," Ukrainian media quoted Kudritsky as saying during a TV marathon on Thursday evening.

Ukrenergo has tools to make the power system balanced in various scenarios, he said.

The power hubs where consumption was the highest are the most problematic ones, he said.

"This includes the central region, particularly the Kiev power hub and the Kharkov power hub, which had suffered damage a month ago, and of course, this is the west of Ukraine, where our trunk substations were damaged quite intensively last week," Kudritsky said.

Ukrenergo has partially restored the functionality of those substations, and yet there are still some problems with making power supply reliable enough, he said.

Ukrainian media reported on Friday that Ukrenergo was imposing temporary power consumption restrictions in central regions of the country.

"The Ukrenergo dispatch center has to impose temporary power consumption restrictions in Kiev and in the Kiev, Chernigov, Cherkassy, and Zhitomir regions. This should help relieve the load on power grids and afford some time to power engineers to repair the damaged equipment," it said.

Ukrenergo dispatchers are authorized to make decisions on temporarily cutting off power supply when they see growing consumption in a particular region, as it is currently impossible to supply more power there due to destroyed power infrastructure, it said.

Meanwhile, Kiev regional military administration head Alexei Kuleba said on Friday that electricity consumers in the Kiev region have been temporarily cut off from power supply due to growing consumption.

"The region sees growth in power consumption, and therefore, temporary power cuts had to be started in the region at 9:20 a.m.," Ukrainian media quoted Kuleba as saying on social media.

Kuleba called on all Kiev region residents "to save electric energy totally."

"This concerns everyone. Switch off unused electric appliances. Be responsible! Let's consume economically," Kuleba wrote.