Highways closed, over 500 communities cut off from electricity in Ukraine due to bad weather

MOSCOW. Nov 28 (Interfax) - As many as 572 communities in Ukraine are still cut off from electricity supply as of 11 a.m. on Tuesday, November 28, Ukrainian media reported, citing the Ukrainian State Emergency Situations Service as saying on social media.

Emergency workers towed away 1,530 vehicles. Eight highways remain closed. Around 1,194 trucks are parked at temporary parking lots. Train traffic is not disrupted.

The Ukrainian Energy Ministry has given slightly different figures. As many as 559 communities remain without electricity as of Tuesday morning due to inclement weather, Ukrainian media reported citing the ministry's statement.

Efforts to mitigate the aftermath of bad weather continue, with 210 emergency teams and more than 230 vehicles involved. The situation in the Nikolayev, Odessa, and Sumy regions, as well as in the Kiev-controlled part of the Kherson region remains complicated due to bad weather, the Energy Ministry said.

In particular, 312 communities (95,600 consumers) in the Odessa region remain blacked out.

At the same time, DTEK said on social media on Tuesday that its power engineers had restored power supply to 169,000 families in 294 communities, after they repaired 206 electricity transmission lines and reenergized 3,003 power substations. There is still damage in the farm fields, which are difficult to reach due to snowdrifts.

For its part, NEC Ukrenergo said that it has repowered two 330 kV high-voltage overhead lines in the southern region affected by inclement weather over the past 24 hours. It also energized another 330 kV line to improve the reliability of power supply in the region. Another 330 kV high-voltage overhead line, which was shut down for technical reasons, has been brought back into operation in the eastern region.

One unit of the thermal power plant was placed under emergency repair and another unit was back in operation over the past 24 hours, it said.

"Despite the power unit outage, the electricity produced by Ukrainian power plants is sufficient to supply household and legal consumers today. Consumption limits have not been set," the system operator said.

The electricity is not exported on Tuesday as it was on Monday. The electricity imports made in the evening hours from Slovakia, Romania, and Moldova doubled to 1,358 MWh with the peak capacity of up to 559 MW in some hours (technically possible maximum capacity of 1,200 MW).

As reported, over 2,000 communities in Ukraine were blacked out due to bad weather as of Monday morning.