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Lockdown transformers symbol12/29/2023 ![]() ![]() “Can you imagine coming to a power station, knowing that this power station could be a target of a missile attack at any moment of time – and you still walk in and do what you have to do? “I never expected such a sacrifice, such a commitment,” says Timchenko. He is in awe of DTEK’s 55,000 employees, be it the engineers who volunteer to repair grid equipment near the front line, power station workers who remain on sites during air raids, or staff at the company’s Kyiv HQ who have worked with Blitz spirit throughout the conflict. Throughout the winter, the Ukrainian crews became adept at restoring power after strikes in a matter of hours.Īlthough things have improved since then, the attacks continue and Timchenko still begins each day with a damage report. Timchenko says the system was eventually restored in 24 hours – although some homes and businesses in parts of the country remained without power for days, according to reports. This allowed the nuclear power stations to come back on as well. The hydro sites were fixed and used to bring the coal power stations back online. In the wake of the attack, Ukraine’s transmission grid operator, Ukrenergo, and DTEK, which is responsible for roughly 40pc of power distribution in the country, dispatched teams of engineers to repair power lines, substations and the hydropower facilities. “We lost every coal power station except one – it was a national blackout,” he says. Like a line of dominoes, the damage to the grid triggered automatic systems at Ukraine’s nuclear and coal power stations, putting them into shutdown one-by-one. “Then it was a chain reaction for the whole system in Ukraine.” Some missiles and drones were missed, and they hit our system,” says Timchenko. “We did not have as much advanced anti-missile equipment then. On that day, Russia unleashed a barrage of 70 cruise missiles and five drones, ruthlessly targeting power and water systems. “The date we all remember is November 23,” he recalls during an interview with The Telegraph in his company’s London office. Timchenko, who has been unable to return to his family home in Donetsk since Russia invaded Crimea and parts of southeast Ukraine in 2014, remembers the particularly “massive” attack in November, which plunged the country into mass blackouts. Strikes rained down daily upon these facilities, leaving only tangled masses of metal behind – and Ukrainians without light and heat in temperatures that can fall to -20 degrees celsius.Īt some point, every single coal or hydroelectric power plant in the country has been damaged, in many instances killing or injuring workers. This kind of thinking underpins much of the work to rebuild Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, which Vladimir Putin’s forces have been mercilessly targeting with missiles and kamikaze drones.ĭamage to this kind of equipment close to the frontlines had been common since the start of the conflict in February last year.īut things stepped up last autumn, when Russian forces began striking coal-fired power plants, electricity sub-stations and other grid equipment across the country in an attempt to break people’s spirits in the coldest months. “You cannot do the same with these turbines.” “In one moment, we could lose 300 megawatts of capacity,” Timchenko explains. With a single, devastating missile strike, Russia can take out an entire 300 megawatt coal power unit, he explains.īy comparison, Tyligulska’s 19 turbines stand hundreds of feet apart and make much smaller targets. ![]() There are not just sound environmental reasons for this, but security ones too, says Maxim Timchenko, chief executive of DTEK. They are also emblematic of Ukraine’s push to replace its fleet of ageing coal plants, which supplied around one quarter of all power before the war, with cleaner sources of energy. Today, the turbines – each about 200 metres tall from the ground to the tip of their blades – are supplying vital power to Ukrainians after the country’s electricity grid took a sustained pounding last winter. They braved floods, freezing temperatures and even volleys of Russian missiles that streaked overhead – fired from warships in the Black Sea – forcing them to dive into bomb shelters. These engineers laboured in open fields just 60 miles from the frontline of the war. For most of Europe, the sight of 19 wind turbines on the horizon is a pretty ordinary thing.īut look a little more closely and the Tyligulska wind farm, in southern Ukraine, seems nothing short of miraculous.Īssembled during wartime in just nine months, the project has become a symbol of Ukraine’s tenacious resistance against Russian attempts to cripple the country’s infrastructure.Īround 300 engineers for DTEK, Ukraine’s biggest private energy company, worked around the clock from August to May to bring the 114 megawatt scheme online, using equipment they cobbled together after the evacuation of foreign contractors. ![]()
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