27 Jan 2023 15:46

Electricity shortage in Ukraine reaches 5 GW at peak hours - DTEK

MOSCOW. Jan 27 (Interfax) - Power supply shortage in Ukraine has reached lately 5 GW at peak consumption hours in the morning and in the evening and up to 3 GW at night, Ukrainian media have reported with reference to Dmitry Sakharuk, executive director of the DTEK power supply company.

Speaking on the national TV marathon on Friday, Sakharuk said the resumption of generation, the restoration of grids, and electricity imports should reduce this shortage.

"Imports will allow for supplying industrial customers. They are critically essential for the industry to work and for people to receive more electricity," Sakharuk said.

DTEK plans to increase imports of electricity to 600 MW/h within the next few days, he said.

At the same time, the interstate grid capacity for electricity imports needs to be nearly tripled to 2 GW/h, for which special technical procedures are being carried out, he said.

"We are currently choosing not between an expensive and a cheap kW/h but between whether it's available or not," Sakharuk said.

The cost of electricity produced by generators reaches 20 hryvni per kW/h, he said.

As regards the degree of damage caused to the Ukrainian power supply infrastructure on Thursday, particularly in the Odessa region, Sakharuk confirmed that restoring power supply there following the pattern used in other regions is impossible.

"The region should be prepared for longer outages and unstable grid operations until the damaged equipment is replaced and until more or less stable work is resumed to transmit the necessary amount of electricity in line with the schedules," Sakharuk said.

Repairs are continuing round the clock, he said.

As reported earlier, Ukraine has imported a total of 18,422 MW/h of electricity since January 15. In particular, it imported 665 MW/h on January 15, 220 MW/h on January 20, 6,963 MW/h on January 21, 6,672 MW/h on January 22, 99 MW/h on January 25, and 3,813 MW/h on January 26.

The most active importer is D. Trading. To import electricity on January 27, it booked the largest possible interstate grid capacity reaching 450-500 MW/h at all hours.

Since January 26, the national power grid operator Ukrenergo has nearly doubled the interstate grid capacity put up for auction to 500-600 MW/h, depending on the time of day.