Kiper: Odesa region is one of the five worst regions in terms of electricity generation

Odesa region is among the five regions of Ukraine with the worst indicators of electricity generation.

This was stated by Oleh Kiper, the head of Odesa RMA during the Ukraine Recovery Conference, in a comment to the NikVesti correspondent.

According to the head of the region, the issue of electricity generation remains urgent both for Odesa and for other large cities of Ukraine, in particular Kharkiv and Mykolaiv. Oleh Kiper emphasized the need to actively work on solving this problem in order to ensure stable energy supply in the region.

«I think that today it is no secret that Odesa is in such a critical state in terms of generation, like many cities of Ukraine. Odesa is probably in the top five. Therefore, of course, there is the issue of generation. The only problem we have with Kharkiv and Mykolaiv is the issue of generation, so we are still working,» he said.

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As you know, according to the new model of «Ukrenergo» for the distribution of electricity between regions, the regions will be de-energized according to queues, and not according to limits. However, the Mykolaiv region cannot avoid long-term blackouts, because it is located in the same energy system.

At the same time, the mayor of Zhytomyr Serhii Sukhomlin talked about the state of the energy system in the city and how local authorities manage to avoid long-term blackouts.

The mayor recalled that in 2022-2023, when emergency shutdowns were first used throughout Ukraine due to Russian attacks on the power system, there were almost no shutdowns in Zhytomyr. A similar situation persists in the region even now.

According to him, the number of outages was minimized thanks to the work of «green energy», the modernization of utility companies and the timely transition to LED lighting in the city.

Shelling of the energy industry in the spring of 2024

On March 22, Russia carried out the first massive shelling of energy infrastructure facilities this year. The Russian army attacked Kharkiv, Zaporizhzhia, Kryvyi Rih, Khmelnytskyi, Poltava Oblast, Vinnytsia Oblast, Lviv Oblast, Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast, Mykolaiv Oblast, Odesa, and other regions of Ukraine.

The biggest was the attack on the Dnipro Hydroelectric Power Plant (HPP) in Zaporizhzhia. This is one of the largest and most powerful hydraulic structures in Ukraine. A rocket attack on the Dnipro HPP resulted in damage to two stations and a dam that are part of its structure.

Oleksandr Kharchenko, director of the Energy Research Center, says that by winter, Ukraine needs to restore at least 25-30% of the damaged heat generation: «We need to fully involve imports. Also, before winter, we need to restore as much as possible from coal generation, from hydro generation and build facilities in gas generation as much as possible.»

At the same time, according to the Minister of Energy Herman Halushchenko, it is not appropriate to make any predictions about the difficulty of the next winter for the energy industry of Ukraine. In his opinion, now no one will be able to say with which generation Ukraine will end up in the winter: «Actually, everything looks comforting, because the system, despite the Russian strikes, is intact.»

The BBC predicts that Ukrainians can spend up to 20 hours a day without electricity or heating in winter.