Power outages in Ukraine may last more than 16 hours today even without emergency cuts

Serhii Kovalenko, CEO of Ukrainian electricity and gas supplier Yasno, has said that the approach to scheduled power outages has changed, and in regions where they are in effect, power cuts may last for most of the day.

Source: Kovalenko on Facebook

Details: Kovalenko noted that the city of Dnipro and Dnipropetrovsk Oblast are currently living under scheduled power outages. However, these are not the schedules people were used to.

If earlier more than four queues meant emergency outages outside the schedule, the country is now beginning to live under schedules of four and a half to five queues. [A "queue" is a group of consumers and businesses using a specific amount of megawatts. The Dispatch Centre sets the number of queues needed across oblasts to address energy deficit – ed.]

Quote: "Maximum intervals of seven hours without electricity and three and a half hours with electricity are currently no longer relevant. The schedule of possible outages is not relevant. Under restrictions of five out of six queues, outages may last for more than 16 hours. This is the current reality."

Details: Kovalenko said he could not predict when the situation in the energy system would improve, citing Russian attacks as the main factor.

Background:

• As of the morning of 19 January, emergency power outages were introduced in several regions of Ukraine due to the difficult situation in the energy system, although Ukrenergo, Ukraine's state-owned electricity transmission operator, did not specify which regions were affected.
• Ukraine's Energy Minister Denys Shmyhal said that constant local accidents are being recorded in Kyiv and Kyiv Oblast due to freezing temperatures and worn-out infrastructure, and repair crews are working to restore heating to 143 apartment buildings in the capital.

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