Due to unfavorable weather conditions, 306,000 consumers were without power on Saturday morning, the Energy Ministry reported.
According to its release, a total of 1,045 settlements in 14 regions – Vinnytsia, Volyn, Dnipropetrovs’k, Zhytomyr, Zakarpattia, Ivano-Frankivsk, Kyiv, Lviv, Rivne, Sumy, Ternopil, Khmelnytsky, Chernivtsi, and Chernihiv – were without power.
According to the ministry, most of the consumers in Khmelnytsky region were cut off from power in 400 settlements.
Also, the 750 kV interconnection line with Hungary and 750 kV overhead power lines were out of service in the region.
“Restoration work is underway,” the Ministry of Energy said.
For its part, DTEK energy holding reported that its electricity distribution system operators in Kyiv, Kyiv and Donetsk regions have been switched to an enhanced mode since the night before due to the bad weather.
As reported with reference to DTEK Kyiv Regional Electricity Networks, in Kyiv region, as a result of bad weather, there were emergency power outages, almost 89 thousand families are left without electricity, most of them in Obukhiv, Fastiv and Bucha districts.
Adaptation of the Ukrainian oil extraction industry to the new realities with power deficit and fan power cuts is inevitable, as it is more profitable for enterprises to provide themselves with autonomous power generation than to incur losses due to downtime of expensive equipment, believes Vladimir Bondaruk, oilseeds trader at Prometey Group of Companies.
“Certainly, the industry was affected by Russian rocket attacks and introduced schedules of blackouts: for example, one plant in the Ternopil region reported a 15% decrease in gross processing due to problems with power supply. But one way or another adaptation to the new realities is inevitable, because pure mathematics works here, when the cost of the generator is incomparably less than the losses from plant downtime,” he said in an interview with Interfax-Ukraine.
Bondaruk has specified that many oil extraction plants (OEZ) have already provided themselves with autonomous power generation and due to this are able to work with sufficient load. Indirectly the fact that “Prometheus” competitors continue to actively buy sunflower seeds for processing due to which the prices for it on the domestic market continue to grow testifies to their complete work.
“We have seen a steady increase in raw material prices since the beginning of the season, and even planned/emergency power outages have not prevented this. Thus, there is reason to believe that the margin of processing still allows the farmer to be interested in selling raw materials at an attractive price, even in conditions of partial loss of productivity by the industry enterprises,” said Bondaruk.
The expert also noted that it is advisable to equip oil extraction plants with generators, because they cannot fully operate in conditions of stabilized power outages, but need uninterrupted supply of electricity throughout the working day.
“I am in contact with a large agricultural holding company with three oil refineries, in total processing up to 4 thousand tons of sunflowers per day, which is one of the best indicators in the country. So, they are now fully autonomous and fully loaded, because at the beginning of January they installed generators and actually compensate for the lack of power in the stationary network without loss of productivity. But, for example, a large power plant in the Vinnitsa region operates at best 60% of its prewar capacity because of the lack of power,” the trader said in an interview.
According to Mr. Bondaruk another alternative to purchase of generators is transition of oil extraction plants to the mode of sunflower processing to export conditions and selling abroad which includes cleaning, drying and separation from ragweed whose admixtures in sunflower seeds are not permitted by European norms.
“A big enough MPEZ in Nikolaev region, which can process 500-700 tons of sunflower per day and had significant power outages, rebuilt the capacity to refine the raw material and then export ready for oil extraction sunflower. That is, they realized that they can’t provide an uninterrupted “crash” (processing) and decided to buy sunflower and bring it to export conditions,” the trader said.
At the same time, according to him, “Prometheus” group of companies has not stopped buying raw materials, despite the problems with electricity.
Prometheus Group provides services in the storage, processing and logistics of crops. Before the Russian aggression the holding owned 34 elevators in the Mykolayiv, Kirovograd, Kiev, Khmelnytsky, Zaporizhzhya, Sumy, Odessa, Kherson and Dnepropetrovsk regions.
By the end of 2021, the group planned to receive $ 45 million EBITDA, while in 2020 this figure reached $ 32.6 million and in 2019 – $ 30.5 million.
The founder and owner of Prometheus Group is Rafael Goroyan.
A combination of several factors: increased generation, reduced consumption due to the weekend and warm weather, as well as network repairs contributed to the absence of blackouts on Sunday, but Ukrainians still need to prepare for the application of power supply limitation schedules on weekdays, DTEK executive director Dmitry Sakharuk said.
“A combination of several factors allows today, on a particular day, not to limit consumption. But tomorrow, when it will be a working day and consumption will increase, schedules of cut-offs will be used,” Sakharuk said on the air of the National Telethon Unified News on Sunday.
At the same time, he explained that the increase of the generation and its supply was due to the return to the system of some thermal and nuclear units, the increase of the production of electricity by solar power plants due to the favorable weather conditions, as well as the networks repaired “thanks to the titanic work of energy specialists.
On the other hand, according to him, a positive role is played by warming, prolongation of the day and reduction of consumption due to the weekends.
At the same time Sakharuk specified that in addition to balance outages, that is, generation restrictions, there are also network restrictions, because of which in some areas there may still be outages.
“We still have a lot of places that were severely affected by the shelling and which have not been repaired completely, for example, Odessa, Kyiv region, Kharkiv region, Zaporizhia,” the DTEK top manager noted.
As it was reported, now all the nine nuclear power units available after the occupation of Zaporizhzhya NPP are in operation: over the last few days, the power system received additional 1220 MW of capacity after repair of one of the nuclear power units and 220 MW of additional capacity of another one due to the completion of repair of the turbine generator.
As of 11:00 a.m., the energy infrastructure is resuming after Russia’s 12th missile strike, with repair work continuing at all facilities damaged by shelling, NEC Ukrenergo said
According to its daily social media update, thermal power plants whose units the Russians tried to target have stopped or reduced their electricity production due to enemy damage, resulting in an increased deficit in the energy system.
“This forced a slight reduction in consumption limits, proportional to all regions. Restrictions are in effect throughout the day,” Ukrenergo noted in its Telegram Channel.
They warned that if the limits are exceeded, emergency shutdowns will be applied, which means that for consumers, the timing of outages may increase.
Ukrenergo pointed out that clarifications on the situation in a particular region or locality could be obtained from the website of the local distribution network operator (oblenergos).
As reported, the operators of the electricity distribution system notified that on Sunday, January 15, “Ukrenergo” has kept the round-the-clock limits of energy consumption for regional electricity distribution companies (oblenergos), returned from January 14, and lowered them by about 19% at night and by 11% during the day.
As Poltavaoblenergo reported on Facebook, in particular, it was given a night limit (from 00:00 to 7:00) of 358 MW of power in the region, and from 7:00 to 24:00 – 430 MW, while on January 14, the limits were 442 MW and 485 MW respectively.
For its part, Prykarpattyaoblenergo notified that it also again received the night limit from 00:00 to 7:00 – 182.6 MW, while the daytime limit for the rest of the day is 262.89 MW. On January 14, Ukrenergo brought the company the limits of 225.2 MW and 296.48 MW, respectively.
Earlier, Ukrenergo noted that the weekend and warming gave hope for easing the limits, but due to another massive Russian missile strike on Saturday, they had to increase them on the contrary.
According to DTEK, Russian invaders shelled two of the company’s thermal power plants, one of which stopped producing electricity.
They noted that no one was injured, but as a result of the attack, which was the 26th for the company, the TPP equipment was damaged – the occupiers hit the turbine room of the power unit of one of the affected TPPs, destroying one of the power units. Other power units were also damaged.
Overall, the 12th massive missile attack on Ukraine’s energy sector on January 14 recorded hits in five regions: Kyiv, Ivano-Frankivsk, Vinnytsia, Lviv and Kharkiv, Ukrenergo reported.
The situation with power supply in Kiev has significantly improved, said SCM public relations and communications director Natalia Emchenko.
“In Kiev today, all districts should be more or less with electricity. Not 100%, but under current conditions it should be enough,” she wrote in her Facebook on Sunday.
At the same time, Yemchenko noted that power engineers have done “absolutely impossible, almost a miracle.”
For his part, the general director of energy supplier YASNO Serhiy Kovalenko noted in his Facebook that Kiev, although not completely, should be sufficiently supplied with electricity, given such significant restrictions in the last week.
In case of prolonged and unpredictable power outages, construction materials producers will be forced to stop their enterprises completely, the president of the All-Ukrainian Union of Construction Materials Manufacturers Konstantin Salii said.
“If there is no light for more than 12 hours a day, and connections will be out of the predicted schedules, the enterprises will stop: no one will dare to lose expensive equipment. Commodity concrete 3-4 hours in tanks will not survive – this is a terrible loss, “- said Salii in a comment to the agency” Interfax-Ukraine “.
According to him, there are practically no alternative sources of energy for enterprises of building materials production with energy capacity over 1 MW.
According to the president of UBC, the decline of production and consumption of building materials in Ukraine, which began with the start of a full-scale war, will continue until the start of the construction season in 2023. At the same time, he noted that despite the sufficient supply of raw materials from producers, financial resources are almost exhausted.
“Financial resources are almost exhausted – a wave of plant closings and sales for debt could begin in the spring of 2023,” Salii pointed out.
