Ukraine announced a shortage of equipment for the power system repair

Sergey Kondratiev, Deputy Head of the Economic Department of the Institute for Energy and Finance, commented to Business FM on the situation in the Ukrainian electric power industry:

“We do not fully understand how seriously the energy facilities on the territory of Ukraine were damaged and what the scale of the losses suffered by Ukraine, because the estimates of the Ukrainian side look rather overestimated. Talking about the fact that up to 30-40% of the capacities of the entire energy system cannot work now and are decommissioned at the moment, this can really happen if substations and large distribution systems are damaged, which provide power output from large thermal power plants, hydroelectric power stations. But if we are talking about a medium-term perspective, many of these destructions for the Ukrainian side can be eliminated. I think that, after all, now we are talking about the fact that no more than 10% of Ukrainian thermal power plants can't operate due to the Russian strikes, and the second problem that remains relevant is the lack of fuel at a number of generating facilities. And now, together with this is precisely creating the picture that leads to the need to introduce rolling blackouts in the central, western regions of the country. While maintaining a relatively medium or high intensity of attacks on the Ukrainian energy system and a shortage of equipment for repairs, we can say that at least until February-March, Ukraine will be forced to live in a mode of serious energy restrictions, possibly introducing rolling blackouts and up to eight to ten hours a day. "