Ukraine needs hundreds of small power plants, Ukrenergo chief says

To protect itself from Russian attacks on energy infrastructure, Ukraine needs to build hundreds of small power plants, Ukrenergo chief Volodymyr Kudrytskyi said, according to the Russian-language BBC website.

“Electricity generation is now concentrated in just a few places, in large thermal and hydropower plants, so damage to them during massive Russian shelling causes serious problems with electricity supplies,” Kudrytskyi said.

Russia has hit large Ukrainian thermal and hydropower plants in a series of attacks in recent weeks, including the Dnipro Hydroelectric Power Plant in Zaporizhzhia, the largest in Ukraine. It has also attacked power plants in the central and western parts of the country.

Kudrytskyi told the BBC that most of the power plants were built in the 1960s and 1970s and will be very difficult to repair after the Russian attacks. “The only way to protect the energy system from massive missile attacks is to decentralise generation capacity,” the Ukrenergo chief said. Instead of 15 or 20 large power plants, Ukraine should build hundreds of small ones with capacities ranging from five to 30 megawatts, he said. This would make Ukraine more resilient to the consequences of Russian attacks.

Russia has stepped up attacks on Ukrainian energy infrastructure in recent weeks, with energy facilities in Kharkiv the worst affected, according to the BBC. On Thursday, Ukrenergo said that Russian shelling had left 350,000 customer connection points without electricity and that supply restrictions would be necessary. Due to the energy shortage, the city authorities announced at the beginning of last week that the heating season would end early.

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