Ukraine has contingency plans for all heating-season scenarios, but early to talk about prolonged power or gas outages – Energy Minister
Ukraine's heating season scenarios have been developed to account for all possible challenges, but it is too early to speak of potential prolonged electricity or gas outages for consumers, Energy Minister Svitlana Hrynchuk said.
"It's too early to say we'll have long-term power outages. We're keeping the situation under control and doing everything necessary to avoid that. But we also have the experience of previous years, when the situation could change daily. We're prepared for various, including worst-case, scenarios but strongly hope that through joint efforts we'll manage to maintain the stability of the energy system and avoid prolonged outages," Hrynchuk said at a briefing in Kyiv on Tuesday.
"I won't, like most experts do before winter, predict that we'll have 10–12–20 hours without power. We hear that all the time," the minister stressed.
According to her, everything depends primarily on the scale of Russian attacks and the speed of restoration efforts.
Regarding Chernihiv region, where hourly power outage schedules have been in place for several days following Russian strikes, Hrynchuk refrained from predicting when they might be lifted.
"It's very difficult to say exactly when everything will be repaired because we're restoring facilities several times a day. But we're working to make sure it doesn't last long. We've already resolved very difficult situations in some cities. So even though outage schedules are in effect, people still have electricity," she explained.
As for possible gas outages, the minister noted that "different scenarios are being considered for different cases," but expressed hope that the government would not have to resort to the worst of them.
"In the past, we didn't apply gas outage schedules, but using our experience with electricity, we've developed them. However, we're doing everything possible not to have to use such mechanisms," Hrynchuk said.