Warfare is dashing Ukraine’s inexperienced power shift: CEO
By Sophie ESTIENNE
Davos, Switzerland (AFP) Jan 23, 2025
Russia’s invasion is forcing Ukraine to hurry up its inexperienced power transition as a approach to safe its electrical energy provide and infrastructure in opposition to assaults, the pinnacle of Ukraine’s greatest non-public electrical energy supplier stated.
“Constructing wind farms or photo voltaic farms will not be solely about decarbonisation. It is about additionally power safety and resilience,” Maxim Timchenko, chief govt of DTEK, advised AFP on the World Financial Discussion board on Wednesday.
“It is a lot more durable to hit and change off these energy stations than thermal or hydro,” he stated.
Russia has repeatedly focused Ukraine’s power system as a part of its practically three-year struggle waged on its neighbour.
Timchenko introduced on the Davos gathering what he referred to as the most important non-public funding in Ukraine since Moscow launched its invasion in 2022: A 450 million euro ($468 million) deal to purchase 64 wind generators from Denmark’s Vestas.
The generators will develop DTEK’s Tyligulska wind farm on the Black Coastline.
Generators additionally provide the benefit of coming on-line quickly and progressively as they’re put in, with a few of the new ones from Vestas churning out energy as quickly as this 12 months.
“I hope that by, earlier than subsequent winter we’ll add already 60 megawatts of capability with this program,” with full capability of 500 megawatts at Tyligulska reached by the tip of 2026.
That will be sufficient to provide round 900,000 houses, he stated.
– ‘Extra resilient’ –
The challenge underscores Ukraine’s push to cut back its reliance on fossil fuels or nuclear power to function big energy crops for an intensive grid, that are each notably uncovered to Russian airstrikes.
The nation’s infrastructure has usually been focused and crippled, resulting in blackouts or emergency voltage reductions — so-called “brownouts” — which are particularly painful throughout the winter.
“This transition from… a extremely centralised, extremely weak power system to scrub, decentralised, extra resilient, and new by way of know-how system… this transition is accelerated by the struggle,” Timchenko stated.
DTEK additionally introduced two weeks in the past a cope with a German-American group Fluence to construct what Timchenko referred to as the primary industrial-scale battery storage challenge in Ukraine.
That challenge is focused for October, and the corporate is in talks with potential companions for 2 different wind parks.
The hope is that smaller renewable power websites unfold throughout the nation will cut back the system’s vulnerability in addition to emissions.
And an assault must destroy all of a wind farm’s generators to fully shut it down.
Wind and photo voltaic at the moment generate 10 p.c of Ukraine’s wants and coal or gas-fired crops produce 20 p.c, with nuclear crops the principle supplier at 55 p.c.
“These investments make us extra resilient. We really feel way more assured that the Russians won’t destroy this new energy station in such extent that they will do it withe thermals,” Timchenko stated of the Tyligulska enlargement.
“Mainly all our energy stations had been attacked for a number of instances throughout 2024,” he famous, with substations and transmission strains additionally focused.
Nonetheless he stated DTEK had managed to get better a lot of the misplaced capability, and at the moment 50 to 60 p.c is operational.
“Taking into consideration that we’ve got a drop of consumption for the reason that starting of the struggle, this capability along with assist of imports of energy is sufficient to keep away from any blackouts,” Timchenko stated.
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