“We cannot remove two factors.” Oleksandr Kharchenko outlines the scenarios of electricity supply in winter, depending on the weather and strikes in the Russian Federation

— As a consumer, I see that the lights are not turned off at my house, there is lighting on the streets, and I perceive the situation as difficult, but controlled, as they often say now when it comes to the front. How close is this perception to the real situation in energy?

— You know, now it is really close to the real situation in energy. First of all, because the pace of restoration of damaged power plants — those power plants that were hit in the spring (in March, April) – no one expected such rates of recovery. And in fact, we are in much better shape now than could have been predicted even in July or August.

What does this mean in practice? In practice, this means, assuming there will be no shocks, if we are just allowed to work quietly, then in fact we will get through the winter to temperatures around 0℃ exactly, and maybe even down to -5℃ without consumer restrictions. That is, we have enough generating capacity, enough capacities have been restored, so that at such temperatures we either do not limit or limit absolutely minimally.

Of course, if it will be colder, if the temperatures will be at the level of −10…−15℃, and such frost will last for three or four weeks in a row, unfortunately, then it will not be possible to avoid the restrictions, but they will not be completely apocalyptic – they will last four to six hours per a day

The situation is indeed under control, but, unfortunately, we cannot remove two factors. We cannot remove the factor of attacks. I’m not an expert here, I can only rely on what our security experts say. And they say that there will be attacks. And the second is the issue of technical problems.

Now, on the one hand, many capacities have been restored and repaired. But, on the other hand, it should be understood that this recovery is not super reliable – the pace is crazy, a lot of work is being done; the equipment, primarily of coal-fired power plants, is very old. In addition to being damaged, it is 50 years old from the time it was created. Therefore, it is impossible to say that there will be no accidents, there will be no technical problems. And any accident, any shutdown of power units will mean a lack of generating capacity.

But I repeat: in general, the situation is much better than could be foreseen even in August.

— How precarious is this situation, from the point of view of the ability of the Russians to shake it up with strikes with their long-range weapons? How easily can the Russians disrupt this balance in the energy system?

– I wouldn’t say it’s simple. We have done a lot to prepare for the heating season – not only in restoring power, but in preparing for attacks as well. And a lot has been done to ensure that our high-voltage network is protected not only by air defense, where possible, but also by physical protection. Physical protection is built at high-voltage substations, primarily Ukrenergo, and this is very important. There is also a reserve of equipment, large reserves have been created – much larger than what we regularly did in peacetime, three times larger there. Will this be enough? Unfortunately, there are no guarantees.

— President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyi warned during his speech at the UN General Assembly that Russia may be preparing attacks on Ukrainian nuclear power plants. In your opinion, if such attacks occur, what consequences do you think they could have?

— Unfortunately, if such attacks take place and are successful, it will be very difficult for us.

Even if one of the three nuclear power plants due to strikes on open distribution devices goes out of the system and will not be able to generate electricity into the system, this means that, firstly, depending on what kind of damage will occur, from two to four weeks will have to restore these open switchgears. And these will be fantastic paces, I must say. And, on the other hand, these two to four weeks will be extremely difficult for all of us, because it will mean that we will not see electricity for at least 16 hours a day

— In your opinion, what can happen in the worst case scenario?

— There are two options for the development of events. One option assumes that the Moscow terrorists will attack the distribution devices of Energoatom, which are completely defenseless – beyond the limits of available anti-aircraft defense. And then a very hard winter awaits everyone.

If that doesn’t happen, even if they attack all the other objects, and even if they do it with a certain success rate for themselves, it will be much easier for us.

Once again: if there are no attacks, we will pass with or without outages [електроенергії]or with very minimal restrictions for consumers. If the attacks happen and there are no attacks on nuclear power plants, on their distribution devices, it will mean that we will go through the winter with some blackouts, but they will not be very severe. And only in the last scenario, when both nuclear power plants and their distribution devices are attacked, we will have a very difficult winter indeed.