Targeting Power: Ukraine's Energy Crisis

On November 28th, Russia executed another massive attack against Ukraine, targeting the power grid across the country and causing blackouts for more than 700,000 homes and businesses. Air raid sirens rang for more than 9 hours in temperatures forecasted to stay below 2 degrees Celsius- this is the 11th attack on Ukraine’s energy sector this year. The frequent strikes on Ukraine’s energy grid this year have damaged more than half of Ukraine’s energy-generating capacity. 

Following the invasion, Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant became the first civil power plant to be attacked, with the Russian troops eventually taking over control on March 4th, 2022; the plant stopped generating for the national grid in September of the same year. Before the invasion, four nuclear plants with 15 reactors supplied half of the country’s electricity. Zaporizhzhia, the largest nuclear power plant in Europe, alone provided 30% of Ukraine’s electricity. Ukraine used to receive most of its nuclear fuels from Russia, until June 2022, when an agreement was signed with American company Westinghouse, who agreed to supply fuel to all Ukraine's nuclear power plants. 

Photo credit: Sofia Bobok 

Russia’s attack on power-generating infrastructure is effective and devastating; repairing the damaged plants might take years while remaining vulnerable to future airstrikes. In contrast, decentralized renewable generation systems such as wind and solar are smaller, which makes them harder targets. Moreover, the repair time for these systems is shorter- it took only seven days to replace panels and transformers while two solar farms were hit in the spring. In contrast, rebuilding a comparable coal-fire plant will require three to four months. 

In October, the EU approved up to €35 billion loan backed by interest from frozen Russian central bank assets, moreover, the Continental European Network synchronized with Ukraine’s electricity grid two years ago to assist with electricity supply, which previously was connected to a larger grid that connects Russia and Belarus. 

Ukrainian and Danish authorities also collaborated on developing the Ukrenergo app- an app that allows users to track planned power outages and receive real-time updates.