Ukraine is catastrophically short of fuel supplies. While there should be nearly three million tons of coal in storage, the actual reserves are almost four times less than the planned ones
Most of the Ukrainian thermal power stations work on coal. And they generate up to one third of all electricity in Ukraine. In the previous years the shortage of coal at thermal power stations was compensated by gas, but now the prices thereof have broken all records.
Officials of the Ministry of Energy officially assure that the issue of voluntary or compulsory limitation of electricity consumption is not on the agenda.
But, energy expert Olga Kosharnaya argues that “rolling” blackouts could happen regardless of the government’s agenda or wishes.
“We have thermal power plants plugged in during daytime and evening peaks. Why can there be ‘rolling blackouts’? It is because of the lack of coal and the inability to connect thermal power plants at consumption peaks. Some kind of accident happens, a thousand-megawatt unit shuts down and the protection system kicks in. It could be due to equipment failure, not even in the reactor sector, but, for example, something happened to the transformer. Our power system does not have such reserves to quickly pick up and replace the fallout of this unit”, – she claims.