According to Ukrenergo head Volodymyr Kudrytskyi, it will be impossible to avoid blackouts for residential consumers due one of Ukraine’s nuclear power plants going into maintenance.
“Starting tomorrow, we will already be dealing with reduced capacity at nuclear power plants [NPP], as expected,” Kudrytskyi told NV’s sister publication Ukrainska Pravda.
“In mid-June, we will see another step down in [generation] capacity at NPPs. This is directly related to the [reactor] maintenance schedule.”
He added that this maintenance cannot be postponed, as the reactors must get a fresh load of nuclear fuel.
“[Nuclear] Fuel can only produce energy for a certain time, and when it is depleted, it must be replaced,” Kudrytskyi explains.
“Therefore, these processes are very difficult to delay. The maintenance can be delayed by a few days or a week, but it cannot be entirely postponed.”
Since mid-May, Ukrainian consumers have faced severe limits on electricity supply, in the wake of a series of Russian air strikes that destroyed much of the country’s flexible generation capacity.
Read also: Ukraine to rearrange power grid connections to level out power cuts
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Read the original article on The New Voice of Ukraine
Section: Nation
Author: Eric Malinowski
