If even one high-voltage substation at a nuclear power plant is damaged in cold weather, Ukraine will face a power outage, said Director of the Energy Research Center Alexander Kharchenko in an interview with UNIAN.
“There is now a big Achilles heel in Ukrainian energy facilities, because Energoatom and the Ministry of Energy, unfortunately, have done nothing at all to protect the so-called open switchgear, but rather the high-voltage substations responsible for the distribution of electricity on the territory of nuclear power plants… If we have at least one station out of order in the cold, or two stations even in the current weather, then we are definitely in for a blackout. There are no options. Then we could have most of the country without electricity.” – Kharchenko was quoted as saying by the Strana publication.
According to him, even if there are no new massive attacks by the Russian Armed Forces, Ukrainians will still face lockdowns in winter for 8-10 hours a day.
“As for the winter period, unfortunately, due to the lack of generation and the lack of generating capacity, we will have 8-10 hours of restrictions per day with virtually no options. Even if everything goes well, there will be no additional attacks. With temperatures of -10 degrees and, God forbid, lower, we will certainly have very serious restrictions,” Kharchenko stressed.
The worst electricity situation is in kyiv, Odessa and Kharkov.
