The Ukraine comes back to Russian electricity

The Ukraine has to return to the permanent import of electricity from Russia in the amount of up to 1 GW. The country hasn’t managed to cope with its coal shortage, heightened in July. As a result, according to sources of the Kommersant, Kiev had to move from the temporary scheme of the import in "emergency mode" to the purchase of electricity on a commercial contract with Inter RAO UES. The Ukraine notes that the country will need 1.5 times more electricity by the winter, and coal stocks are still very low.

Because of the serious problems in the energy system the Ukraine has to close the shortages with electricity supply from Russia. Now about 0.8 GW of power are consistently supplied from the Russian Federation under the existing shortage in the power system of the Ukraine in the amount of about 2 GW, says the Kommersant’s source on the energy market of the country. The import in the amount of up to 1 GW was also confirmed by the former Energy Minister of the Ukraine, Vladimir Kulida. The active supplies from the Russian Federation, interrupted in May on the initiative of Kiev, were forced to be resumed in late July, when equipment of two thermal power plants in Donbass was damaged because of the shooting. The situation was aggravated by shutdown of one of the units at  Zaporozhye nuclear power plant, whereas fuel stocks at a number of coal-fired thermal power plants fell to a critical level.