- Eastern Europe has power grids that are compatible with those of Ukraine
- Russian attacks on infrastructure with great damage
- Ukraine sent a list of needed hardware from overseas
VILNIUS/WARSAU, December 21 (Portal) – In Lithuania, a huge, disused electrical transformer built in 1980 in what is now Ukraine has been dusted and prepared for shipment. It will travel by sea to Romania and then back to Ukraine, possibly in the coming weeks.
Rokas Masiulis, head of Lithuania’s power grid, said his company was scouring warehouses for anything else Ukraine might need to repair the damage done to its power system by repeated Russian missile strikes.
“Ukrainians say they are fine with receiving everything, including things that don’t work or are broken, since they can fix the equipment themselves,” he told Portal.
As the West rushes to stockpile Kiev’s arms and ammunition, countries in Europe and beyond are also scrambling to supply the transformers, switches and cables, and diesel generators needed to light and heat the country in winter.
Ukraine has shared a list with European countries of about 10,000 items it urgently needs to stay in power.
Former members of the Soviet Union and former communist bloc play an important role due to their proximity and the fact that some networks in the region still have hardware compatible with Ukraine.
Masiulis said that the greatest need is for autotransformers like the one destined for Ukraine. It’s valued at around 2 million euros ($2.13 million), weighs nearly 200 tons and took two weeks to strip of detachable parts and de-oil for transport.
“We are in the process of upgrading our network and everything we mine we send to Ukraine,” he said. Latvia, Lithuania’s northern neighbor and once part of the Soviet Union, said it will send five large transformers to Ukraine, two of which will soon be operational.
Since early October, Russian forces have targeted Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, causing power outages and forcing millions of people to endure freezing temperatures with little or no heating.
Moscow says the strikes are justified as part of its “special military operation” to degrade Ukraine’s armed forces. Kyiv and the West view the barrage as a cynical attack on civilians to break their spirits and weaken the enemy.
Regional European institutions and countries such as Azerbaijan, France, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland as well as individual companies have already sent thousands of pieces of equipment to Ukraine.
“We are looking worldwide for replacements for the equipment destroyed in the attacks,” Yaroslav Demchenkov, Ukraine’s deputy energy minister, said in early December.
Ukraine has managed to avoid a “total collapse” of its power distribution system, he said, but the disruptions are significant. About 80% of the Kyiv region was without power for two days this week after Russian missile and drone strikes.
Estimating the total value of the support is impossible given the fragmented and hasty nature of the response, but tens if not hundreds of millions of dollars worth of transformers and generators have been shipped.
One of the challenges is finding the right hardware for Ukraine’s needs. As a former member of the Soviet Union, its electricity system is not always compatible with other countries, including its neighbors to the north.
Supply of generators cannot meet demand, company officials said, especially as some key deliveries can take months.
“Unfortunately, the high-voltage transformers that we need most are not there yet,” Oleksandr Kharchenko, director of the Kyiv-based Energy Industry Research Center, told Ukrainian state television on Wednesday.
He said there are some in the world that could be shipped but doesn’t expect them to arrive until February at the earliest.
GIANT TRANSFORMERS
The Lithuanian transmission system operator has already sent hundreds of smaller transformers that reduce voltage on the way from the power plant to the end user, and its gas network has shipped spare parts to Ukraine.
Poland’s state-controlled power utility Tauron said last week it had sent 21 kilometers (13 miles) of wire, nine drums, 129 insulators, 39 transformers and 11 catenary circuit breakers, which spokesman Łukasz Zimnoch described as gifts.
[1/4] Cars are seen on a street during a traffic collapse as the subway halted during a power outage after critical civilian infrastructure was hit by Russian missile strikes in Kyiv, Ukraine December 16, 2022. Portal/Gleb Garanich/
Some deliveries are made in response to Ukrainian requests, while private companies there order alternative deliveries to keep business running.
Jerzy Kowalik, commercial director at Polish power generator maker EPS System, said the company is getting many orders from Ukraine, some for dozens of large units at a time.
“There is an issue with the availability of engines that we are using amid a global boom in generators fueled by the energy crisis,” Kowalik said. His company, which employs around 100 people, cannot meet the demand and rejects some requests from Ukraine.
Volodymyr Kudrystski, CEO of Ukraine’s grid operator Ukrenergo, said procuring much-needed transformers was complicated by the fact that Ukraine’s standard power transmission lines are 750 kilovolts and 330 kV. For example, those in neighboring Poland are 400 kV and 220 kV.
Switches, circuit breakers and circuit breakers are also vital, as around 70 Ukrenergo repair teams, or about 1,000 people, are working around the clock to restore power and subcontractors have been hired.
LONG-TERM DELIVERY PLANS
At peak times, Ukraine consumes around 16 gigawatts of electricity. It can import up to 10% of it from neighboring systems, although interconnectors with Poland were damaged in recent attacks before being restored, and Romania is only a marginal source so far.
This means that Ukraine is drawing on its own reserves of equipment, built up and sent from abroad in anticipation of a possible invasion.
Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said this month that Ukrainian companies have imported 500,000 smaller generators but the country needs 17,000 large or industrial generators to get through the winter.
These were particularly important for critical infrastructure such as hospitals and water pumping stations.
One of the bodies overseeing energy support in Europe is the Energy Community Secretariat, an international group set up by the European Union and eight member states aspiring to EU membership.
Its director, Artur Lorkowski, said more than 60 private companies in Europe from 20 countries are involved, with 800 tons of equipment already shipped and dozens more shipments planned.
As supplies on Europe’s state power grids dwindle, Lorkovsky expected the private sector to play a more important role in meeting Ukraine’s energy infrastructure needs.
Talks are under way through the G7 to tap into companies in the United States, Canada and Japan, he added.
“This would give us the scale that would make a difference in Ukraine,” Lorkowski told Portal.
A first tranche of US power equipment worth $13 million has been shipped to Ukraine, officials said, and two more planeloads are due to depart shortly. Ukraine is also in talks with Japan.
Lorkowski and some other officials predicted that hardware might have to be designed and built from scratch, although such a switch would take time and money.
Ukrainian officials looking to integrate Ukraine’s economy with Western Europe are considering a major overhaul of the energy sector, although repairing the current network is a priority for now.
Some imported equipment was donated, while countries and international credit agencies are also providing loans and grants to help Kyiv fund repairs.
Olena Osmolovska, director of the reform support team at the Ministry of Energy of Ukraine, said it would cost tens of billions of dollars to fully restore the energy system.
($1 = 0.9406 euros)
Reporting by Andrius Sytas in Vilnius and Riga, Marek Strzelecki in Warsaw; Additional reporting by Olena Harmash and Pavel Polityuk in Kyiv; writing by Mike Collett-White; Edited by Mike Collett-White and Barbara Lewis
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