Yuriy Korolchuk, an expert at the Institute of Energy Strategies, said long blackouts between 12 and 20 hours daily are expected this upcoming winter in Ukraine due to damages to the energy infrastructure.
In the best-case scenario, Korolchuk told 24Kanal that Ukrainians will likely have access to electricity for 12 hours daily if eight to nine nuclear power plant (NPP) units work under normal capacity, the winter won’t be too harsh, and if Ukraine can restore 3 gigawatts (GW) of generation capacity out of the 6 GW damaged – likely excluding those destroyed by Russian strikes.
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However, he said it might only be four hours if the winter is harsh, more facilities are damaged, only six to seven NPP units are functioning, and only 0.2 GW is restored by winter.
Serhii Nahornyak, a member of the Energy Committee at Ukraine’s parliament, told 24Kanal that there’d likely be 10 hours of blackouts daily if the temperature doesn’t drop below -10°C (14°F).
Since March, Russia has conducted nine massive missile strikes on Ukrainian energy infrastructure, damaging and destroying several power plants and reducing Ukraine’s generation capacity.
A Kyiv Post analysis established that Ukraine had 36 GW of actual generation capacity prior to the 2022 invasion. However, as of July, the number likely dropped to less than 10 GW due to power plants being damaged, destroyed or occupied.
ISW Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, December, 21, 2024
At the June 2024 Ukraine Recovery Conference in Berlin, President Volodymyr Zelensky said that Ukraine’s peak energy consumption in winter was 18 GW. The former CEO of Ukrenergo, Ukraine’s transmission operator, claimed in June that summer generally consumes 40 to 45 percent less power than winter.
Ukraine has suffered from intermittent blackouts – at times with only two hours of electricity daily – throughout this summer.
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