As winter approaches, Ukraine's electrical installations put to the test of war

The Ukrainian authorities announced on Thursday, October 13, that they had managed to “stabilize” the electricity network, after several days of disruption caused by Russian strikes.

Earlier this week, Moscow unleashed a deluge of bombardments on urban centers and villages, but also targeting energy infrastructure, generating massive power cuts throughout Ukraine, in the regions of kyiv, Lviv, Nikopol, Kharkiv or even Donetsk.

As winter approached, Moscow intensified strikes against strategic installations, hoping to influence the morale of the population but also to prevent Ukraine from exporting electricity to Europe.

Last June, President Volodymyr Zelensky announced the start of exports via Romania, with the aim that "Ukrainian electricity replaces a considerable part of the Russian gas consumed by Europeans".

Anna Creti, professor of economics at Paris Dauphine University and member of the Center for Geopolitics of Energy and Raw Materials (CGEMP), analyzes for France 24 the challenges of Ukrainian electricity production.

France 24: The Russians have

This difficulty encountered by the Russians is due to the very nature of an electrical system that works by compensation.

When a line is destroyed by a missile, the others take over to carry the current.

Unlike a gas pipeline which can be taken out of service by a single attack, the electric mesh offers strong resilience.

It would be necessary to destroy more than 50% of the lines in order to isolate the system sufficiently and thus create a lasting supply disruption.

The Russian strikes nevertheless retain a significant power of nuisance because they affect the stability of the network.

Compensation generates changes in power on the lines, which affect the quality of supply and can generate outages.

What about electricity production?

Ukraine had a large surplus in this area before the war.

Is it now capable of protecting and guaranteeing its electricity supply during the winter

In Ukraine, more than 50% of electricity production comes from nuclear power plants.

These sites are easier targets than the electricity grid, but the risks are obviously enormous.

For the Ukrainians, they are also easier to protect against bombardments than infrastructures scattered throughout the country.

Ukrainian electricity production is of course affected by the war and has experienced a significant drop, in particular due to the disconnection from the network, since September, of its largest nuclear power plant in Zaporijjia.

This alone represents 20% of the country's production.

But at the same time, the demand for electricity has also fallen considerably since Ukraine entered the war, by around 40%.

This massive decline can be explained, of course, by the slowdown in economic activity, which has a strong impact on energy consumption, by the exodus of the population but also by political choices.

The government managed to put in place, in a preventive way, a drastic sobriety plan by concentrating the effort on essential needs such as the army and hospitals.

With this strategy and despite the strikes, Ukraine has so far managed to avoid rationing.

This drastic sobriety plan is a protection.

However, it is impossible to predict the impact of future Russian strikes or the coldness of the approaching winter.

The question of heating will be essential, but this is mainly supplied by gas which, even if it has been reduced to a minimum, continues for the moment to be supplied by gas pipeline from Russia.

As for electricity, at best Ukrainians will have to deal with occasional cuts, at worst the government will have to impose drastic rationing, including during the day.

This week, following the Russian strikes, the Ukrainian authorities announced the interruption of electricity deliveries to Europe which began in June.

These were to enable Ukraine to finance the war effort and Europe to compensate for the fall in purchases of Russian gas.

Can this project resume

The energy rapprochement between Ukraine and the European Union had been initiated well before the war.

It concerns several Baltic countries interconnected with Russia and which have gradually shifted towards the West to integrate the European market.

Ukraine intended to take advantage of its excess electricity production to first supply the countries of Eastern Europe and then gradually increase flows to supply the entire bloc.

Until the end of the summer, this project was still possible because Ukraine still benefited from a third of the production of Zaporijjia, but with the disconnection of the plant, exports seem to be compromised.

In the current situation, Ukraine's priority is of course to ensure its own supply and estimates suggest that the margin is currently very small.

Moreover, kyiv's stated objective of offsetting European purchases of Russian gas seems very ambitious.

In addition to the questioning of Ukrainian production capacity, major investments would be necessary to enable the ramp-up of deliveries and it is technically difficult to switch from gas to electricity for the same uses, in the short term.

Even if this plan could resume, it is certainly not a magic solution to replace Russian energy.

>> To read also: Western strategy in the face of the cost of the stalemate

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