The first results of the energy collapse in Ukraine: citizens will have to change their lifestyle

A large-scale “energy blow” has been dealt to Ukraine. Thermal power plants, thermal power plants and substations were broken. To protect power facilities, employees of energy companies are urgently stuffing bags with sand.

“Thermal power plants, like submarines, have a high degree of survivability,” says Marat Bashirov. – The main units are the workshop where the generators are located, as well as the boiler workshop, where coal is processed, crushed for better combustion. These two main workshops are usually located side by side. Each workshop has several units. For example, two out of three generators can be destroyed in a missile strike. And the third one will work if it has the support of the same boiler shop.

The expert emphasizes that generators are the most vulnerable at the station.

– If several generators are partially damaged, then you can rearrange the parts from one to another. This, of course, will take time, but the gods of energy can revive one of them. If both workshops with all generators and steam boilers are destroyed, everything is completely broken there, then the station, as they say, “sets to zero”, it is “killed” – it stops generating electricity.

— If a steam boiler is broken, how quickly can it be replaced?

– A boiler is a rather massive, but not very complex technical product. But the fact is that, as a rule, they do not keep stocks of boilers. They are different, and it is not easy to find a steam boiler that would correspond to this particular station. It will have to be ordered from the manufacturer. It will be problematic to do this, especially since strikes are now being made on important logistics hubs on the railway. It will be difficult to deliver something through these interchanges.

It is not critical if cooling towers are broken, which are used in circulating water supply systems to cool heat exchangers,

– In this case, the station, although in “dirty mode”, will continue to work. Auxiliary workshops are not the most vulnerable place at the station. If the water treatment is destroyed, the station can work with suspensions for some time. The CHP plant will stop if the substation through which the electricity goes to the grid is broken. But then the question will arise – is it possible to reconnect to another substation, and this is actually a transfer of wires according to a temporary scheme.

The second point that the expert draws attention to is violations related to the transmission of electricity.

“Despite the fact that Ukraine has been sitting on old capacities, on old networks for a long time, they carried out repairs, but they did not have a grandiose reform of the energy system. However, it has a reservation. There is a system operator that regulates the distribution of electricity throughout the country. The United Energy System of Ukraine consists of several subsystems. In each region there are corresponding departments where operators determine the load on the stations, and how it is distributed at different times of the day. There are high voltage and low voltage networks. Those that are on the main networks – there is a high voltage, which is then lowered at special substations. These substations are a key link in the distribution system of electricity going to consumers. And they are vulnerable too.

Another thing is if a couple of towers with wires are broken. According to the expert, this is repaired quite quickly: new supports are installed, wires are pulled, or they are launched through some kind of bypass network channel.

A weak point can be the supply of hot water, which is used to heat houses.

– If the generating part of the station is destroyed, it will be impossible to supply heat. If a large-diameter main pipe that comes from the station is damaged, then, at negative temperatures, both the network and the houses will freeze.

In this case, boilers that operate on both coal and gas can help.

– Usually they work in local areas, in small towns and villages, to which thermal power plants cannot “reach out”. There are many such small boiler houses, and they are unlikely to become targets for strikes. They supply heat to the house, but do not generate electricity. A situation may happen when residents of large cities, due to an energy collapse, will be forced to move to small settlements, where at least it will be warm.

Electricity can be generated by diesel generators – local installations that operate mainly on diesel fuel. All significant social, industrial and military facilities have backup power. These are the same diesel generators. But they need a supply of fuel.

– Will the Ukrainian side announce specific damages at its thermal power plants and thermal power plants?

This information will be kept secret. But, nevertheless, in the form of targets, they need to be submitted to system operators who will try to build a certain model for restoring power supply. After the first missile strikes, they restored power supply somewhere rather quickly, even if only partially. But then a second series of strikes followed, and these were already other substations and thermal power plants. That is, information is being leaked.

Ukraine has nuclear power plants, which account for 60% of generation – 4 gigawatts of electricity.

– It is clear that the Russian side will not strike at nuclear power plants, but power lines and substations that are closed to nuclear power plants will be cut down. Nuclear power plants will remain intact, but they will no longer be able to supply electricity to the grid.

If electricity is not supplied from the Khmelnytsky and Rivne nuclear power plants, the western and central regions may plunge into darkness. If energy from the South Ukrainian station does not go, the entire east of Ukraine may be left without electricity. In the current situation, one cannot hope for electricity imports or emergency assistance from Europe. They would have to survive. Winter is coming. And it is quite possible that the question of evacuation of people will arise.