The Ukrainian electricity grid operator, NPC UKRENERGO, was working on Monday evening to restore electricity supplies to the country after 50 Russian rockets hit energy infrastructure, knocking out more than 1GW of capacity and damaging lines and substations. The government decided to suspend electricity exports from 11th October, quoting damages to infrastructure. Exports will also be suspended to the Republic of Moldova, which depends for around 20% of demand on Ukrainian imports. Romanian TSO Transelectrica announced it would organise daily capacity auctions starting from 12 October.
Ukrenergo has introduced rotating power cuts in the Khmelnytskyi, Lviv, Sumy and Zhytomyr region, asking consumers to reduce consumption between 17-23 hours Kyiv time, wrote Aura Săbăduș in a LinkedIn post. According to her, the saved electricity amounts to around 460 MW of generation capacity. Ukraine will not be looking to import electricity from neighbouring European countries for now, a source close to Ukrenergo said.
The total import capacity of Ukraine is around 2GW. In a worst case scenario, Ukraine may be looking to import around 300MW in peak hours, possibly in January.
Russia specifically targeted power infrastructure in Ukraine, in retaliation after a successful attack last Saturday partially stopped transit on the Kerch Strait Bridge. The gas infrastructure was not hit during Monday’s attacks.
“Due to the energy situation in the Ukraine area, capacity allocations on the Romania-Moldova border have been brought forward from 14 October 2022 (with delivery day 15 October 2022) to 11 October 2022 (with delivery day 12 October 2022). From 12 October 2022 (with delivery day 13 October 2022) the auction dates will be those in the allocation rules approved by ANRE,” Transelectrica announced. According to sources quoted by e-nergia.ro, 100 MW of transmission capacity on the Isaccea-Vulcănești interconnection line will be put up for auction, allowing consumers in the Republic of Moldova to be supplied with electricity from Romania, starting on 12 October.