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Ukraine - Electric

Ukraine aims to add nearly 3 GW of generation capacity to the already restored capacity by the end of 2024, Energy Minister Herman Halushchenko said at a briefing on 17 August 2024. “Given the ongoing destruction and constant Russian attacks, the needs are significant. As a result, we are prioritizing them and working with international partners to actively seek financial support to increase the power system's capacity as soon as possible and ensure reliable power supply to key facilities."

Starting December 1, Ukraine capacity to import electricity from Europe will jump by 400 MW, reaching a total of 2100 MW. This is about 25% of the gap created by Russian attacks on the energy infrastructure, it was reported 27 October 2024.

Overall, data on energy capacity remains strictly controlled in the context of Martial Law. The severe damage and destruction of around a half of electricity generation capacity during March-May (over 9 GW) has complicated an already challenging environment to stabilize the sector and advance structural energy market reforms. The authorities plan a multipronged approach to bridge the current and prospective energy deficit. Given the estimated US$1bn in damages, urgent repairs of the salvageable energy infrastructure are being undertaken by the affected energy companies. Support from international donors is being sought to provide needed equipment and financial resources, including for decentralized electricity generation.

Energy deficits are expected to persist throughout 2024 and 2025, although their scale will be limited by the resilient energy system. Imports of energy from the European ENTSO-E grid are currently capped at 1.7 GW in normal times, with an additional 0.3 GW to cover emergency shortfalls, and thus cannot fully cover the lost capacity. Whereas there could be some scope for increasing electricity imports to cover energy deficits during peak consumption, significant near-term increases in EU electricity imports are unlikely due to infrastructure constraints in neighboring countries. Recent market estimates put the average energy deficit for 2024 around 10 percent, gradually decreasing over 2025, and eliminated by early 2026. In addition, the critical energy provision of nuclear power plants (NPPs), will also help close energy deficits.

Based on previous consumption and import patterns, severe deficits (up to 30 percent) are likely to arise only in peak hours. In this scenario, and if current load-shedding practices persist, industrial consumers will need to operate below capacity, and household consumption will be restricted through planned outages, including in the winter. Additional attacks would further destabilize the energy system.

Ukraine is carrying out the largest campaign of repairs in modern history to its power system to prepare for another winter of possible Russian air strikes, its energy minister said 23 June 2023. Missile and drone attacks on energy infrastructure last year caused sweeping blackouts and water outages for millions of Ukrainians during the winter, damaging about 43% of the country's energy infrastructure, according to the state-owned power distributor Ukrenergo.

"The most extensive repair campaign in the history of energy facilities is currently under way in Ukraine," Energy Minister German Galushchenko was quoted as saying by his ministry on the Telegram messenger. "Power generation and distribution facilities are being restored, and work is under way to strengthen the power system's resilience to military challenges," he added. Ukraine has nearly doubled electricity tariffs for consumers since June 1 to find funds to prepare for winter, when energy consumption is typically at its highest.

In 2020, Ukraine generated a total of 149 billion kilowatthours (kWh) of electricity, most of which was nuclear powered. Four nuclear plants with 15 reactors generated over 51% of the total electric power supply in 2020. Fossil fuels, particularly coal and natural gas, have traditionally made up a substantial portion of electric power generation. In 2020, fossil fuels accounted for 37% of generation. Contributions from renewables and other sources have been marginal.

Since 2017, Ukraine had been in the process of joining the European electrical grid. On midnight February 24, 2022, Ukraine had disconnected from the Russian grid as part of a three-day scheduled test – required by the European Network of Transmission System Operators for Electricity – to prove the country could operate autonomously. With no support from the Russian grid and not yet connected to the European one, Ukraine’s energy system was isolated for the first time since its independence in 1991. Just four hours later, Russia launched its full-scale invasion. After the invasion was under way, Ukraine’s electrical engineers worked day and night to synchronise with the European system. As a result, what had meant to be a year-and-half-long project was completed in about three weeks.

Intentionally targeting civilians and civilian objects is a war crime. Widespread and systematic attacks on a civilian population qualify as crimes against humanity. Russia's military barrages left Ukrainian civilians without heat, or water, or electricity in many parts. Since 10 October 2022, Russia carried out strikes on Ukraine's energy system using missiles, artillery, and drones. Russia continued to attack electrical substations and transmission lines. This relentless focus on repeatedly attacking the same energy infrastructure made it increasingly difficult for Ukraine to complete necessary repairs.

In the first few months of the war, electricity and basic services were attacked in several major cities. As the war continued into May, there was a shift—some continued loss of lights in eastern Ukraine and some recovery in the western part of Ukraine. Power plants and other infrastructure were systematically damaged in the early weeks of the war, cutting off electricity to millions of people.

As Russia struggled on the battlefield, by late 2022 it increasingly turned to attacks against the Ukrainian people with punishing strikes damaging energy grid infrastructure, and deliberately doing so as winter approaches. These strikes do not appear aimed at any military purpose and instead further the goal of the Putin regime to increase the suffering and death of Ukrainian men, women and children.

The Russian Federation's military strategy in Ukraine is becoming increasingly clear. It was designed to make the winter as intolerable as possible for the people of Ukraine. Many Ukrainians are referring to this as the Kholodomor strategy: literally, death by freezing. The Kremlin would like nothing more than to erode Ukrainian forces' morale and the determination of the Ukrainian people to successfully resist Russia's invasion.

In 2020, Ukraine generated a total of 149 billion kilowatthours (kWh) of electricity, most of which was nuclear powered. Four nuclear plants with 15 reactors generated over 51% of the total electric power supply in 2020. Fossil fuels, particularly coal and natural gas, have traditionally made up a substantial portion of electric power generation. In 2020, fossil fuels accounted for 37% of generation. Contributions from renewables and other sources have been marginal.

Ukraine has a total installed generation capacity of 55 million kilowatts (kW). Fossil fuel energy represents the largest share of capacity, at 52% (28.535 million kW); followed by nuclear at 24% (13.107 million kW); and renewables, including hydro, at 22% (12.031 million kW).

The Ukrainian government proposed to meet at least half of future electricity demand with nuclear power. In the past, most of Ukraine's nuclear fuel supplies came from Russia, but Energoatom, Ukraine's national nuclear generation company, is reducing its supply from Russia by diversifying its nuclear fuel sources and buying fuel from U.S.-based Westinghouse Electric Company.

In 2012, Ukraine adopted amendments to its Law on Electricity, applicable to all new investments in energy power plants, which set out a 50 percent "local component requirement" for the fixed assets of the plant, services acquired by the plant's owners, and all material inputs used in power production. Additionally, the amendments to the law introduce a Feed-In-Tariff (FIT) for the production of electricity from renewable sources. The granting of the FIT is conditional to the fulfilment of the local content requirement in the production of such electricity.

Ukraine has set a goal of sourcing 25% of its total energy mix from renewables by 2035. The current share of energy generated from renewable energy sources (RES), wind, solar, biomass, biogas, and small hydro, including big hydropower projects over 10MW, is comparatively small. At the beginning of 2020, the share of renewables in energy reached 11 percent and by the end of the year reached 12.4 percent. The current feed-in tariff or “Green Tariffs� will expire on January 1, 2030.

There are five main regions in southern Ukraine where about 66 percent of all renewable generation is located, namely Odesa, Zaporizhzhia, Mykolaiv, Kherson and Dnipro regions. Those regions have the best wind resources and highest solar insolation.

The Green Tariff in Ukraine is currently the main state support mechanism for RPPs. The Green Tariff was introduced on 1 April 2009 as a special preferential price for electricity produced from RES, to be paid until 1 January 2030. It is set by the regulator separately for each RPP and for each technology. While Ukraine still has one of the highest, the situation with non-payments to renewable energy producers by the Guaranteed Buyer remains critical.

On July 1, 2019, Ukraine launched a New Liberalized Electricity Market in compliance with the Third Energy Package of the European Union. The former electricity market, organized under the single-buyer model, was divided into several new sub-markets: the bilateral contracts market; the day-ahead market; the intraday market; the balancing market; the market for ancillary services; and the retail market.

The renewable power producers (RPP) mainly operate on the bilateral contracts market, selling their output at the Green Tariff directly to the Guaranteed Buyer. The latter then re-sells the electricity on the day-ahead and intraday markets. The difference between the Green Tariff and the price of electricity sold at the day-ahead and intraday markets is reimbursed to the Guaranteed Buyer by the Ukrainian transmission system operator Ukrenergo, as a payment for the Guaranteed Buyer's services for the increase of the share of electricity generated from RES.

The full extent of railways administrated by Ukrzaliznytsia is currently around 22,300 km, of which 9,752 km (44.3%) is fully electrified with the use of the overhead wire. Ukraine invested around €700 million ($740 million) to improve its rail infrastructure and rolling stock in time for the 2012 UEFA European soccer championship. As a result, the Ukrainian railroad is a pretty modern one. During the first two months of the war, the Ukrainian rail company evolved into the country's most important logistics operation. By May 2022, provincial rail stations, electrical substations, and rail bridges were increasingly becoming the targets of Russian missiles. Missiles strikes on 10 October 2022 targeted infrastructure across an area stretching more than 1,000 km, with electricity-generating infrastructure and military targets stretching from Kharkov and Dnepropetrovsk to Odessa, Kiev, Ternpol and Lvov hit in missile attacks, which temporarily left swathes of the country without access to electricity. The General Staff of the Ukraine Armed Forces said 75 missiles were fired against Ukrainian targets, of which 41 were neutralised by air defences. Electricity cuts were reported in several regions, including Ukraine's second city Kharkiv and its surrounding region, plus the northeastern Sumy region, Zhytomyr region in the north and Khmelnytskyi region in the west. Scott Ritter, a former US Marine Corps intelligence officer, UN weapons inspector and independent military analyst, said “I think these strategic attacks aren't just about impacting the morale of the Ukrainian nation, but the real capability of the Ukrainian nation – the ability to transport troops and equipment... "

Most regions in Ukraine were experiencing emergency blackouts in the wake of Russian shelling 14 Januaey 2023 and there will be ˜difficult days' ahead, Ukraine's energy minister said. Russian missile strikes were reported throughout Ukraine, including a hit on infrastructure facilities in Kyiv and explosions in the Dniprovskiy district of the Ukrainian capital, the city's mayor said.

In the early months of the full-scale invasion, Russia captured a number of power plants as the army occupied territory in the south and east of the country, including the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, syphoning off a segment of Ukraine’s energy production capability. However, on October 10, 2022, Russia ushered in a new phase of the war, firing 84 missiles and 24 drones, the largest air strikes since the start of the war, many of which specifically targeted power plants and energy distribution systems. Since this date, Russia regularly attacked Ukraine’s energy production facilities with cruise missiles and drones, targeting thermal and hydropower plants as well as the electrical grid that channels and distributes power across the country to consumers.

Until February 24, 2022, the Ukrainian electricity grid had been interconnected with the Russian and Belarussian grids. The Russian energy sector’s intimate knowledge of the Ukrainian grid is why Russia targeted specific areas of Ukrenergo’s substations – where electrical voltage sent by power plants can be reduced before being sent to operators such as DTEK – with such precision.

With around 60 percent of Ukraine’s power plants and more than 40 percent of the high voltage grid infrastructure damaged, blackouts were designed by operators such as DTEK to distribute the available energy to all households equally. the frequency of the attacks on the Ukrainian energy infrastructure that required rolling blackouts between the end of October 2022 and the beginning of February 2023, which she estimates left around 12 million people cut off from the grid every hour.

The air defence systems, which had not been primed for Russia’s new tactics, left the open-air substations and large power plants vulnerable. The frequency and violence of the strikes also left the workers traumatised and demoralised. At Ukrenergo, more than 1,500 employees are working in the field at any one time. During October and November 2022, there were weekly strikes on energy facilities, and from December onwards, the attacks came every two weeks.

By March 2023 there had been a tangible improvement in the energy supply to Ukraine’s major cities, with rows of privately owned diesel-run generators that line the streets in case of blackouts now standing idle. There were around 200,000 Ukrainians living in non-occupied territories who are subjected to the scheduled energy blackouts. She says that this change is partly down to the vast improvement in the country’s air defence systems in protecting critical infrastructure and the ability of everyone out in the field to work faster and more creatively.