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DTEK said that close to one million people in the Mariupol and Kyiv region do not have access to electricity.
The intensifying attacks have raised fears that Russia may target additional nuclear power plants and other major energy facilities.
Attacking the energy system is a particularly effective war tactic, inflicting widespread damage through attacks on relatively small targets, says Adam Stein, deputy director of nuclear innovation at the Breakthrough Institute.
And amid the country’s freezing winter temperatures, it could have deadly effects. Even if natural gas pipelines remain intact, electricity is needed to run pumping stations and furnaces.
“Let’s not be mistaken: disabling Ukraine’s power plants kills civilians” tweeted out Jesse Jenkins, an assistant professor of energy modeling at Princeton.
Power outages can shut down subways, buses and trains that citizens use to escape; turn off lights in shelters and hospitals; and spoils food and medicine. It also threatens to cut communications, disrupt government planning, undermine military defense and undermine morale.
Syncing grids
As of Sunday, radiation levels at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in southeastern Ukraine remained normal, but only two of the six reactors were operating. by virtue of The Normal team to the International Atomic Energy Agency still operates the facility, but is now doing so “by order of the commander of the Russian forces” who has taken control of the site. They also closed the lines of communication.
Ukraine has only limited options for increasing the resilience of its electricity grid in the midst of a war. DTEK quickly opened nine additional coal turbines last week to make up for the power lost from the nuclear power plant.
However, the country’s coal and natural gas reserves already below normal levels This winter. Ordinary supply lines, from mines to ports, may be restricted, at risk of attack, or already damaged. In particular, DTEK noted that railroad tracks carrying coal to a separate power station in Zaporizhzhia were “blown up”.
Georg Zachmann, a senior fellow at Bruegel, an economic think tank that focuses on Ukraine’s energy problems, says that replenishing a nuclear power plant’s output will quickly deplete reserves.
Authorities and energy managers in the country, push for another possibility: quickly integrating the country’s grid with the European Union system to keep electricity flowing, especially in the event of sudden or wider outages.
This effort was already underway. In 2017, the country’s main transmission operator, Ukrenergo, signed a connection agreement with ENTSO-E, Europe’s association of more than 40 transmission operators. However, integration will require extensive system security testing and the installation of a variety of complex regulatory and energy market agreements, as well as frequency control capabilities and other technologies to ensure grid interoperability.
Full integration would also require the opening or construction of transmission lines through Hungary, Moldova, Poland, Romania and Slovakia, Zachmann said. an analysis last year. Collectively, these will provide more than five gigawatts of electricity, which is more than 10% of Ukraine’s normal generation capacity, exceeding the level required by the EU and ENTSO-E for such cross-border integrations.
All of this was expected to cost at least 600 million euros and take years to complete.
Now the hope is that the systems of the parties “emergency mode”, potentially within days or weeks, dropping some of the usual requirements and deals. Zachmann says limited integration could benefit from lines connecting Ukraine to Hungary and Slovakia.
EU energy commissioner Kadri Simson said there was broad agreement to move forward “as soon as possible”. Reuters reported.
However, there may still be some important technical and political challenges hindering integration. Late last month, ENTSO-E said transmission operators will consider options “urgently” and make the effort a “priority issue”. However, it did not elaborate on the current status of the commitment or disclose the estimated timing.
In response to an MIT Technology Review inquiry, the press office said its experts are considering different options and should consider technical considerations, system stability, regulatory issues, and cybersecurity concerns.
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