"Imports will not help much." Ukrenergo advises businesses to invest in own generation
The chairman of the board of Ukrenergo, Volodymyr Kudrytskyi, believes that industrial consumers should invest in electricity generation in order to insure themselves against blackouts, he said in an interview with Interfax-Ukraine.
Kudrytskyi's advice, in particular, concerns Dnipropetrovsk Oblast, where power outage schedules were introduced after the March missile and drone strikes.
"Now the issue is not imports and the lack of electricity in the system as a whole, but the issue is precisely the limitation of the power supply of the power node due to Russian attacks. Imports in this particular situation will not save industrial consumers much, but they will be saved by some internal generation, which exists in this node, in this district," said the head of Ukrenergo.
These assets often belong to the enterprises themselves, but they need to be reconstructed.
"We would suggest that such consumers also consider maximizing their own electricity generation where possible in order to increase their energy resilience and the region's resilience to such attacks," he said.
Kudrytskyi said that Ukrenergo supports the construction of its own generation, but it cannot be just solar panels.
"If it will be a solar plant, it should be with a battery, and if it is a gas plant, for example, a gas turbine or a gas piston plant, that's great," he explained.
Kudrytskyi believes that this will be a mutually beneficial situation: the state will receive additional generation, and plants will also be able to make money from it.
Since March 2024, Russia has intensified attacks on Ukraine's energy system. On the night of March 22, Russia used 63 kamikaze drones and 88 missiles of various types to attack Ukraine. Anti-aircraft defense managed to shoot down 55 Shaheds and 37 missiles.
Volodymyr Kudrytskyi, the chairman of the board of NPC Ukrenergo, called this the biggest attack on the energy system of Ukraine during the all-out war.
Another powerful attack took place on March 29. Then the Russians used 60 Shaheds and 39 missiles, while the air defense managed to shoot down 58 drones and 26 missiles.
As a result of the strikes, the Dnipro HPP in Zaporizhzhya, the Kharkiv CHP-5, the Zmiyiv TPP of the Centrenergo company, the Burshtyn and Ladyzhyn TPPs of the DTEK company were destroyed.