What happened in Odessa and beyond. The expert – about the situation with energy supply, the reality of removing blackouts and strange decisions of officials

On November 17, Russia launched a combined attack on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, using about 120 different missiles and 90 drones. On the same day, emergency blackouts were introduced in Kyiv and a number of regions. Currently, Ukrenergo continues to apply stabilization shutdowns from early morning to evening. NV asked Volodymyr Omelchenko, director of energy programs at the Oleksandr Razumkov Center for Economic and Political Research, how long Ukrainians will have to live with energy supply restrictions this time, what is the deficit in the energy system and what is the situation with it in Odesa, which suffered perhaps the most.

Tell us about the current situation in energy. What now with the volumes of generation, and is consumption increasing?

Consumption is gradually increasing. Today, compared to the previous day, it is about 1.5% more. In general, the situation is slowly improving. However, the generation deficit remains, but it is somewhat smaller than it was yesterday or the day before yesterday. After all, as we can see, only one series of shutdowns was introduced across the country. The deficit is estimated at 1-1.5 GW in total.

And what is happening now with imports? How close is the available quota?

Import, unfortunately, is very slow, we choose at the level of no more than 15% of the quota, if we talk about the total volume per day. This is explained by the fact that the prices in the European Union, in many countries, are higher than in our country. First of all, when it comes to those hours when we have a deficit. And we also have restrictions in the form of price caps[marginalpricesonthemarket[граничніцінинаринку “a day ahead”, the intraday market and the balancing market]. NCREKP (The National Commission, which carries out state regulation in the fields of energy and communal services) cannot solve this problem with price limits in any way. Otherwise, we might not have a deficit now, or it would be absolutely minimal.

Is there any reason to hope that the current blackouts will stop soon, unless there are new Russian attacks on the power system?

It also depends on the weather. In principle, restrictions may be minimized next week, but I cannot say 100% now that there will be no restrictions. Still, the deficit will persist. Unfortunately, we do not encourage imports. That is, the business has no incentive to import electricity, unfortunately. But this is due to regulatory issues. But all this worsens the situation with a shortage of power and with limitations. So far, there is no reason to believe that the restrictions will definitely end soon. They could stop next week if they change the price caps and stimulate imports more. But as far as I know, the NCRECP still stubbornly does not do this. So we continue not to use all the possibilities of importing electricity. Because of this, the trust of our partners is also lost. They said that Ukraine constantly agreed to increase the quota, but it does not use it at all, and in times of shortage. Although it is important to note that this is also due to the fact that there are currently certain network restrictions on the supply of electricity. But they may soon be canceled, or at least minimized.

What is happening in Odessa now? What, after all, happened during the recent attacks on the city, what exactly caused this difficult situation with the energy supply in the region, and when can it improve?

Restoration work has been carried out there and hourly outage schedules are already being cancelled, although risks remain. Yet there is some damage, repairs are underway. That is, the situation is still shaky, it is not completely stabilized from the point of view of technical reliability, but today in Odessa everything is much better than it was yesterday or the day before yesterday.

The enemy concentrated the greatest attention on Odesa. There were shellings all over Ukraine, but in particular the enemy focused attention on substations near Odesa. These powerful strikes destroyed three of the four key substations. Apparently, this is explained by some of their logic, the Russians.

They believe that this is a Russian-speaking region, and that these strikes will help make the Odessans somehow more tolerant of the enemy, or something. That is, to immerse them in a kind of Stockholm syndrome. Another reason is that this is an important region for Ukraine from the point of view of exports. So this is a blow to the economy.

What else is worth knowing about the current situation in the energy system of Ukraine? How is the connection of small generation facilities progressing?

Network restrictions still apply. It is necessary to repair the substations that transmit electricity from the west to the east, where we have a more difficult situation. In addition, the situation in Sumy is difficult, because it is a border region and there is constant shelling. The situation is difficult in Kryvyi Rih, in Svitlovodsk. And not only with electricity, but also with heat.

Regarding cogeneration plants, gas mini-power plants. There are many problems in the regions because there is not enough money to connect a small gas generation. In addition, there is a big problem with the debt of the thermal utility for gas — more than UAH 60 billion.

One of the problems is why they don’t connect gas generation (although the equipment was delivered), in that, firstly, there is a difference in prices. Namely, in the prices for thermal energy, which do not increase, and the price for natural gas. That is, the cost of thermal energy does not cover the price of natural gas. This is one of the problems. The second is that local budgets do not have enough funds to cover this difference, and the state does not have these funds either. And, in the end, big debts.

The third problem is the lack of money in many regions for the implementation of these projects, even if the equipment is imported. Therefore, in my opinion, this direction is not sufficiently stimulated.