Ukraine's energy sector under siege: Navigating through crisis and shortages
The Ministry of Energy of Ukraine has warned of a possible power shortage following Russian missile attacks on Wednesday morning and has appealed to companies to reduce their consumption. The ministry assures that supplies for individual consumers will remain unchanged.
"Following another massive attack on the energy system (including power plants), it is possible today to apply restrictions (on power supply) for industrial consumers between 12 PM and 5 PM ET," the ministry said on Telegram.
At the same time, it appealed to citizens to use electricity sparingly during peak hours.
"This is necessary for the stable operation of the system, which has been seriously damaged during the recent shelling; it will also allow us not to limit power consumption by individual consumers," explained the statement.
In the morning and night attacks using aviation and drones, Russia struck energy infrastructure facilities in the Lviv, Vinnytsia, Kyiv, Poltava, Kirovohrad, Zaporizhzhia, and Ivano-Frankivsk regions.
The brutal war doctrine
Since the beginning of the invasion, Russia has conducted massive missile attacks on critical infrastructure, primarily targeting transmission networks and power plants in Ukraine.
Russia aims to destroy Ukraine’s energy potential by attacking not only large and important power plants but also transmission networks, hubs, and energy corridors.
In an interview with money.pl, Gen. Bogusław Pacek explained that Russia will continue to target Ukraine's critical infrastructure, with a special focus on energy.
"This is the implementation of General Gerasimov's concept, which the Chief of the Russian Armed Forces General Staff formulated and announced in 2019 at the Moscow Defense University. He had already indicated that the new concept of war assumes - parallel to other military actions - priority destruction of critical infrastructure," explained Gen. Pacek.
Destroy the potential
Ukraine has one of the largest power systems in Europe. About half of the capacity comes from thermal power plants, most using hard coal. However, a significantly smaller portion of thermal power plants also burns gas and mazut,
lists the Energy Forum. The issue is that those with the greatest potential are located in the eastern and central parts of the country, in Donetsk, Luhansk, Kharkiv, Zaporizhzhia, and Dnipro. Some of them have fallen under the control of the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk republics.
A significant blow to Ukraine's energy and also one of the biggest ecological disasters of the war was the destruction of the Kakhovka Hydroelectric Power Plant in June 2023, whose potential was ultimately lost.
The safety of the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant remains a challenge. With its four nuclear power plants, Ukraine is a powerhouse in Europe. It ranks third in terms of nuclear production capacity on the continent. According to data cited by the industry portal nuklear.pl, the total installed capacity of Ukraine's 15 units is approximately 14,835 MW of energy, accounting for more than half of the electricity produced in Ukraine.
