The winter ahead

Russia has destroyed half of Ukraine’s energy infrastructure. What does that mean for the upcoming heating season?

In March 2024, the Russian military began its largest aerial attack on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure yet, disabling about half of the country’s power generating capacity. While many of the affected facilities will take years to repair, winter is just months away, and Russia’s attacks show no sign of stopping. Journalists from the independent outlet iStories spoke to a number of industry experts to find out how the Ukrainian authorities are preparing for the upcoming heating season. Meduza shares an abridged translation of their reporting.

“This winter, millions [of Ukrainians] are going to freeze. What kind of advice do you give people in that situation? Leave the city for the village and stock up on firewood,” said Ukrainian businessman Ihor Tynny, cofounder of the Ukrainian Renewable Energy Association, in early June.

While the first winter of the full-scale war was brutal, almost leading the Kyiv authorities to issue an evacuation order, the winter of 2023–2024 was comparatively manageable. In March, however, the Russian army began a massive airstrike campaign against Ukraine’s energy infrastructure that turned out to be hugely effective, ultimately destroying about half of the country’s electricity generation capacity. Many Ukrainian city dwellers now risk being left not only without power but also without heat in the upcoming winter; however, experts say there’s no reason to fear a complete collapse of the central heating system.

A new approach

Russia’s widespread assault on Ukraine’s energy system began on March 22. That day, according to the Ukrainian Air Force, Russian troops launched 63 attack drones and 88 missiles of various kinds. The Ukrainian authorities reported that the attack was the largest on the country’s energy infrastructure since the start of the war, with more than 10 power facilities targeted, including the Dnipro Hydroelectric Station in the Zaporizhzhia region. In June, Russia carried out another attack against the plant, disabling it completely; restoring it is expected to take years.

Since then, Russia has continued to launch regular strikes against Ukrainian energy facilities. Its tactics have changed since the full-scale war’s first winter: while Russian forces previously targeted electrical substations using cruise missiles and kamikaze drones, their new approach is to target large thermal and electrical power plants with an expanded arsenal that includes Iskander and Kinzhal missiles. They’ve also started carrying out more concentrated attacks by targeting fewer facilities at a time, CNN has reported. According to the Financial Times, Russia’s attacks have targeted thermal power plants in the regions that are the least protected from air attacks.

These strikes began near the end of the heating season, which may be because the Russian army spent the winter stockpiling missiles. Russia may also have been waiting for the Ukrainian army to start running low on missiles for air defense systems; by February, according to The New York Times, Ukraine only had a few weeks’ worth of missiles left for its U.S.-made Patriot systems. It wasn’t able to start replenishing its stocks until after the U.S. Congress approved a new military aid package in late April.

Protecting thermal or hydroelectric power plants from a massive air attack when dozens of different kinds of missiles and drones are hitting the target at once is practically impossible, according to Ukrainian energy expert Volodymyr Omelchenko. The protective structures that Ukraine built at its energy facilities after the winter of 2022–2023 can shield against missile debris, he said, but not against direct hits.

Can Ukraine make up for the lost capacity?

Russia has destroyed 80 percent of Ukraine’s thermal power generation capacity and about a third of its hydroelectric power generation capacity, totaling about 9 GW of capacity, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on June 11. Last winter, the country’s peak energy demand was about 18 GW.

The Ukrainian authorities plan to take a range of measures to compensate for the country’s lost capacity, Ukrainian energy market expert Hennadiy Riabtsev told iStories. To start, they’ll work to repair as many of the damaged facilities as possible before the start of the heating season. “There are facilities that can be restored, and this work has already begun,” Riabtsev said.

Additionally, the authorities will bring smaller plants that were shut down in the past for various reasons back into operation. Many of these facilities were decommissioned due to low efficiency or high fuel costs. “I know for sure that in one region, there’s a 200-MW station that’s currently sitting idle due to a court decision: there was a conflict between the owners,” Riabtsev explained.

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Another option is for the authorities to install new thermal stations with production capacities ranging from 5 MW to 30 MW, also known as mini thermal power plants (TPPs). The timeframes for purchasing, transporting, and installing these mini TPPs can vary from one month to one year.

Additionally, Ukraine has numerous natural gas distribution units that are currently sitting idle. In 2022, after the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion, Ukraine reduced the transit of Russian gas through its territory, and the Ukrainian authorities have said that they plan to stop transporting Russian gas through the country entirely after 2024, when the five-year contract signed in 2019 expires. “All of these gas compression and pumping stations are capable of generating electricity and thermal energy,” Riabtsev told iStories. “All of them will be utilized [for electricity production], as has been mandated by [Ukraine’s] National Security and Defense Council.”

Creating energy storage systems at intermittent power stations, primarily at solar farms, which cover up to 20 percent of Ukraine’s electricity consumption on sunny days, will also help mitigate the problem.

Riabtsev estimates that restoring damaged facilities could yield about 2 GW, while restarting dormant plants, installing mini TPPs, and making use of gas distribution units could add another 1.5–2 GW. Storage capacities, meanwhile, could contribute about 1 GW, and electricity imports from Europe could add another 0.5 GW, though this would only benefit Ukraine’s western regions, and it’s unclear whether European countries will have surplus electricity for export.

That leaves Ukraine’s likely deficit this winter at 4–4.5 GW, which would necessitate scheduled power outages of 4–8 hours per day, or up to 10 hours per day in some regions, according to Riabtsev. The energy supplier Yasno has said it’s possible that consumers might only have electricity for 5–6 hours a day.

As prepared as possible

Ihor Tynny isn’t the only person who’s advised Ukrainians to spend the coming winter outside of the cities. Former Ukrainian Energy Minister Oleksiy Orzhel endorsed the same strategy earlier this month, as did Oleh Popenko, head of the country’s Union of Utility Service Consumers.

For many, relocating will likely become necessary not because of a lack of electricity but due to heating shutdowns. The thermal power plants that have been destroyed by the Russian army not only generated electricity but also provided hot water for cities’ municipal heating systems. In 2021, according to the International District Energy Association, 53 percent of urban households in Ukraine were connected to these central heating systems.

This winter, residents of apartment buildings that have switched to electric heating in recent years will be most at risk, Popenko told iStories. While there are no centralized statistics on the proportion of high-rise buildings that have made the switch, there are entire cities where central heating is completely absent, including Nikopol and Marhanets in the Dnipropetrovsk region and Pokrovsk in the Donetsk region.

Buildings that were connected to central heating systems but now lack heat due to the destruction of thermal power plants can be heated using mini TPPs and mobile boilers. To supply heated water to high-rise apartment buildings, charging devices will need to be installed to provide electricity during outages. Popenko is confident Ukrainian energy workers will be able to handle both of these tasks in big cities, though he says there will be “some problems” in smaller cities with smaller budgets and fewer specialists.

Out of Ukraine’s major cities, Kharkiv will likely be the most vulnerable this winter, Riabtsev told iStories. Currently, the city is targeted by military and bombing attacks almost daily, and on March 22, the Kharkiv TEC-5 plant, which covered about 30 percent of the city’s thermal energy needs, was destroyed. City authorities plan to make up for the lost capacity with smaller power stations and mobile boilers that will be distributed throughout the city, making the energy system less vulnerable to Russian strikes; nonetheless, there’s no guarantee that the system will be able to function throughout the entire season while under constant attack.

In the war’s first winter, emergency power outages following aerial attacks were particularly dangerous for Ukraine’s critical infrastructure, including hospitals. Reports appeared regularly in the Ukrainian media about doctors continuing with surgeries after the power went out, and many routine surgeries had to be postponed.

The Ukrainian authorities were more prepared for the winter of 2023–2024, and they largely managed to keep critical infrastructure operational throughout the season, according to Riabtsev. This coming winter, they will have significantly more resources at their disposal, while many establishments such as businesses and schools have acquired generators as well. “The number of autonomous power sources [in Ukrainian cities] has increased not just tenfold, I think, but by several orders of magnitude,” Riabtsev said.

“Almost all social sector facilities, especially hospitals, are equipped with powerful generators,” Popenko said. “I don’t see any problems here. Everything was worked out last winter and the previous winter.”