Surviving the frost. What will happen to Kyiv after the next Russian attack?

The rumors that Kyiv is only a few shelling rounds away from a blackout are spreading more and more confidently. Given the level of fragility that exists in the power system, it is not really a difficult task for Kyiv to create even more problems with shelling today. However, how big will these problems be and how quickly can they be fixed and the situation stabilized?To understand this, LIGA.net talked to the energy sector and the Kyiv City State Administration. They modelled possible scenarios for Kyiv after the next shelling, estimated the time needed for the situation to stabilise, and explained how this could affect the whole of Ukraine.Next is a direct speech.Acting First Deputy Head of the Kyiv City State Administration Petro PanteleevWe allow for and rehearse much more than three scenarios for the development of the situation in Kyiv. The situation is changing almost every day and, unfortunately, depends on the enemy's actions and how massive their attacks will be.There are three key factors that influence the situation:Russian tactics, the scale of their energy terror and the resilience of our energy system.Air temperature. When there is such a significant minus or temperature drop outside, the risk of accidents increases, and so-called water hammer is possible in the process of restoring heat supply. It is much more difficult for staff to work in cold weather, especially when the workload and pace at which people are working now is enormous.Electricity shortages and emergency power outage schedules. This directly affects the power supply to infrastructure facilities and the stability of some systems.The city coordinates actions and current calls around the clock, and we have been working in the operational headquarters mode for a long time together with districts, power engineers, housing, rescuers and other key services.After another shelling on January 20, we had to make a quick decision to re-drain the water in the houses where there is a risk of no heating.The timeframe for the temporary cessation of heat supply varies and depends on how quickly the heat sources resume operation or switch to temporary alternative lines. But we are definitely talking about the operational pace of recovery.This heating season is definitely the most challenging in years. We have to take unprecedented measures required by the crisis situation. The enemy has been building up and accumulating a mass of missiles and drones, which are now attacking the infrastructure.We are not talking about the simultaneous disappearance of all services [in the worst-case scenario in Kyiv], these are rather irrational messages that only provoke and disorient people. And in this difficult period, everyone, without exception, needs to remain calm, think rationally and carefully.Kyiv residents can influence their own comfort at the level of a single building and they should do so! There are many technical solutions, depending on the task to be achieved – lighting, heating, elevators, water pumping, etc.Kyiv has the largest and most diverse housing stock in Ukraine in terms of years of construction, construction and technical characteristics, approaches to building management and operation, relationships with suppliers, etc.Kyiv's high-rise buildings use all possible and proven technical and technological configurations to achieve thermal modernization and the ability to operate smoothly in the absence of electricity.Generators are the optimal solution for multi-storey buildings that have their own engineering infrastructure for heating systems and where there are problems with heat in the absence of electricity.If the power supply is only supplied for a short period of time or there are emergency outages, the high-rise building simply does not have time to warm up and actually remains cold. The installation of a generator ensures that critical electricity needs are met. The circulation pumps work, and the building is warm.Regarding medical facilities and social institutions where patients, the elderly, and IDPs are staying. Since January 9, when these institutions were temporarily left without heat, they have been provided with mobile boilers. For almost three days, all these institutions received heat at different times. None of them was left without heat supply. These institutions also have uninterruptible power supplies: generators, solar power plants, batteries, inverters. The city has 69 mobile boiler houses for backup heat supply in case of accidents.Will the enemy succeed in leaving Kyiv residents without gas, water and heat for a long time? Forecasting is a very thankless task in the current environment. But the city has sufficient resources and various algorithms of actions even in the most crisis situations to prevent this.Some boiler houses cannot operate without electricity. In such cases, about 150 stationary boiler houses of Kyivteploenergo can be connected to generators. Last year, the company increased its stock of generators, including high-capacity ones of 1-2 MW. This made it possible to increase the number of boiler houses that can operate autonomously.Therefore, in the event of a power outage, the boiler houses will be powered by generators – temporarily, until the situation with electricity and heat supply is fully stabilized.Read alsoTo prevent pipes from freezing. How much can a house be equipped with an individual heating stationYASNO companyIt is very difficult to talk about any scenarios for the development of the situation in the energy sector, because everything depends on several factors:Weather. Frost, snow, and rain have a direct impact on the operation of the power system and the speed of recovery. In winter, every -5 degrees adds up to 100MW of consumption – people warm up when centralized heating is not enough or turn up the electric heating. The increased load can affect the strength of the systems and the number of accidents on the networks.Recovery. Each subsequent accident reduces the strength of the system, so that more equipment may have to be replaced during the next repair, and so on.Shelling. It is difficult to predict the severity of the next attack, whether a shell will hit a substation, and the extent of damage. What will be the accompanying factors, such as the weather, availability of equipment, and speed of recovery?Even after the shelling, when we understand the extent of the damage, it is impossible to make predictions for the same reasons.The final stabilization of the situation should be discussed only after our victory and the end of hostilities. Everything before that is a short-term solution.You need to understand that a blackout is when there is no power supply at all. Our only blackout occurred on November 23, 2022, when the entire country's power system went out.What is happening in Kyiv now is not a blackout.First of allkyiv is the largest center of consumption and management. At the same time, critical infrastructure is partially powered or has backup power, and large businesses have mostly secured energy independence.Secondlyit is important to understand that blackouts are not about "less electricity" but about less flexibility. The larger and more complex a hub is (like Kyiv), the harder it is for the system to maneuver in the face of generation shortages or grid damage.However, the outage in Kyiv does not in itself mean an automatic collapse of the country's power system, but rather an indicator of the system's stability.Read alsoHow banks will work in a blackout. Scenarios from Sense Bank, Oschadbank, and OTPChairman of the Parliamentary Committee on Energy and Housing and Communal Services (CH) Andriy GerusAll the scenarios after the next shelling are the most inaccurate forecasts. It all depends on what kind of attack will take place, how the air defense system will respond, what kind of hits will occur, and so on.As a rule, the first day after a serious shelling there are significant problems. But power engineers, heat engineers and water utility workers do their best to minimize the problems within 1-3 days.How do these attacks on the capital affect the country? If the enemy focuses on attacks on Kyiv, it usually flies fewer missiles to other regions. Because the enemy's resources are also limited.Former CEO of Ukrenergo Volodymyr KudrytskyiWorst case scenario of the situation in Kyiv is the continuation of Russian attacks on heating facilities. If the attacks are successful, this will create serious problems with heating residential buildings.With each such attack, as long as the frost persists, heat problems can occur again and again. This scenario would require an extremely large effort from the utilities.It will be necessary to constantly drain water from multi-storey buildings where it is temporarily impossible to supply coolant so that the system does not freeze, and after repair, restart the heating.Launching the heating season is always a complex technical and organizational operation. Cities prepare for it for a long time, and the process takes some time. In this scenario, such a complicated exercise will have to be repeated many times, which is technically, organizationally, and in terms of comfort for people extremely difficult. Interruptions in heat supply during frosts are a serious discomfort.Best case scenario - We are effectively repelling attacks with missiles that, according to the President, were brought to Patriot systems and other air defense systems. The damage caused by the Russian attacks is minor and is being quickly repaired, and we are gradually restoring generation in the power grid, including in Kyiv.Heat supply systems are also being restored, and houses are gradually being connected to heating networks. As a result, the problem of heat supply is being solved one way or another, and the situation with electricity is improving – we can switch to two or three queue schedules, so to speak.A variant between the two – when the success of attacks is not catastrophic, but not zero either. In this case, we will be in a slightly worse state than we are now, or in a slightly better state.But the current state will not last forever. It may last for another week, two or three, but relief will come. We will have to mentally prepare for a difficult January and a potentially difficult February.But as the winter ends – in about a month and a half – and solar power plants become more active and consumption decreases, the situation in the power system will definitely ease.Even in the worst-case scenario, I don't think the Russians will be able to completely "pay off" Kyiv. I focused more on heating systems, because this is the key. They won't be able to cut off Kyiv's electricity supply completely and for a long time. There may be stricter or softer blackout schedules compared to other regions, but not total darkness.Currently, they are targeting centralized heat supply systems – large Kyiv thermal power plants. Therefore, I see the main risks in heat supply. As for the power system, I think power engineers can be relatively calm. Water is a derivative of electricity. It will be there. There may be local and temporary interruptions, but in general, water will remain.Regarding gas, many people were afraid of a shortage, but Naftogaz has done a pretty good job of securing the support of donors who trust Sergiy Koretsky and his team. Financial resources have been provided, and as far as I know, the gas has been almost completely purchased – perhaps a small amount is left to be purchased during the season.No problems are expected in terms of gas volumes. I also see no major risks in terms of delivery. The scenario in which Kyiv's gas supply will be interrupted does not look realistic at the moment.When can we expect the situation to stabilize? I don't want to talk about two or three weeks and "cosplay" a well-known advisor to the Presidential Office, but this is roughly the horizon we see. According to weather forecasts, the frost should subside by the end of January or mid-February.The activity of Russians will also depend on this. They understand that at temperatures around +10, when solar plants are more active, it will be much more difficult to create a deficit in the power system. The current consumption of 18 thousand MW will not be there either – it will drop to 13-14 thousand.The Russians are obviously counting on the fact that they did not succeed in completely destroying the energy system, as they threatened in 2022. A national long-term blackout, like the one in Spain, I believe, does not threaten the Ukrainian energy system.They will not be able to shut down the power system even for 10-20 hours. There will be restrictions, but the system is under the control of Ukrenergo. For a real impact, they need weeks, not hours, to have an impact on the frontline, to destroy the rear. This scenario does not look realistic.Their goal is to demoralize people, create internal pressure on the political leadership, and force them to make concessions or surrender terms. Therefore, as a society, it is important for us to be patient, understand the enemy's strategy, and mentally prepare for the next few weeks.But then it will get easier. And we should not lose the war because the Russians were able to locally create problems with the temperature in our homes. I believe that their strategy of demoralization is a losing one. They will get on our nerves, but they will not achieve their strategic goal.Former Chairman of the Board of Naftogaz of Ukraine Andriy KobolyevThis is not our last winter. And Russia, unfortunately, will not go away. Therefore, our energy sector must always be ready for these two challenges, regardless of the date on the calendar.It is from this angle that the effectiveness of energy reforms since independence and the inheritance of the great Soviet energy machine should be assessed.What saves us:A super-extensive network of trunk transportation and local distribution of gas and electricity. This is not our achievement, but we have managed to keep it in a relatively sane state and convert it into separate and relatively efficient operators of different types of networks.Integration with the European gas market through numerous multichannel connection points, which can potentially cover the entire domestic gas demand even in the event of significant damage to the production and storage segments (underground storage facilities).Integration with the European electricity market. The volume of theoretically possible flows here is smaller than in gas, but it is critical to maintain our system at times when some domestic resources become unavailable.Private "ants" in the liquid fuel market, which have gradually replaced the state-owned "cows" and effectively provide the economy with sufficient volumes of diesel and gasoline. Although I'm not sure it's correct to call them "ants" anymore – some of them have grown huge shark jaws.The management (boards and supervisory boards) of large operators of state assets who were not afraid to do unpopular but expedient things from the point of view of wartime. That is, to build security systems not on the principle of "the cheapest offer on Prozorro for bloggers to praise" but on the principle of sufficient reliability and reasonable speed. I know of at least two such companies, but I won't name them on purpose.the "kulaks" are autonomous on a wide range of scales, from entire cities (e.g., Zhytomyr) to private businesses and households that have switched to small-scale autonomous systems and alternative fuels in previous years.This is where we have serious problems:- Centralized heating of large cities based on the Soviet model. It can work efficiently under two conditions: if it is not stolen and if there is no high risk of Russian missile strikes. If at least one of these conditions is not met, it is necessary to switch to small-scale distributed systems in private ownership."Energoatom. This is an epic failure in a number of areas. I will highlight what hurts the most: the actual absence of protection systems at the points of connection of nuclear power plants to the grid that would be commensurate with the financial capabilities of this state monster.The extremely high concentration of systems for preparing and compressing (read: pumping) produced gas in state-owned production companies. This is an easy target for Russian missiles and drones.A public procurement system focused on imitating its own efficiency. The most common example of such imitation is the substitution of the eligibility criterion for the lowest price criterion.Populism and quarrels as the dominant culture among public sector managers. Too many of them have not yet unlearned the habit of calling our citizens "ordinary people" and promising "cheap energy to everyone and always". And after the next arrival, they begin to hysterically point fingers at the next level of management, shifting the blame to it – instead of honestly recognizing the problem and fixing it quickly.Read also"On autonomous power for a week". What is the plan B for stores and pharmacies in case of long blackouts?

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