Bad weather causes power cuts in 132 communities in Ukraine - Energy Ministry

MOSCOW. Dec 19 (Interfax) - Adverse weather has caused power cuts in 132 communities in three regions of Ukraine, while no scheduled power supply restrictions are planned for now, Ukrainian media reported citing an Energy Ministry statement on Tuesday.

The largest number of communities, 100, cut off from power because of adverse weather has been recorded in the Kiev-controlled part of the Donetsk region, the ministry said. At the same time, power engineers have returned electricity to 25,500 households in 59 communities. Sixty-one repair teams using 77 items of equipment are working to restore power supply, which is complicated, in particular, by icing and the destruction of power towers.

Another 16 populated areas are cut off from power because of adverse weather in the Kharkov region, where 492 transmission towers have collapsed or been damaged because of icing, which complicates efforts to restore power supply.

Bad weather has also caused outages in the Dnepropetrovsk region. Another 57 populated areas remain without electricity for technical and other reasons in the Sumy region, 14 in the Chernigov region, 45 in the Kiev-controlled part of the Kherson region, and 63 in the Kiev-controlled part of the Zaporozhye region.

In general, the national power system's operations are stable and are under control, and no scheduled power cuts to households are planned, the ministry said.

At the same time, Ukrainian media cited the national power grid operator Ukrenergo as reporting in a statement on its social account that 432 communities had no electricity for various reasons as of Tuesday.

Compared to Monday, electricity imports to Ukraine declined by nearly 22% on Tuesday. Ukraine is expected to import electricity almost all the day from Slovakia, Romania, and Moldova, and its amount should total 4,981 MW/h. No electricity is exported from Ukraine now.