Electricity in Ukraine



The electricity sector in Ukraine is an important part of energy in Ukraine. Most electricity generation is nuclear. The bulk of Energoatom output is sold to the government's "guaranteed buyer" to keep prices more stable for domestic customers. Zaporizhzhia is the largest nuclear power plant in Europe. Until the 2010s all of Ukraine's nuclear fuel came from Russia, but now most does not.

Some electricity infrastructure was destroyed in the Russo-Ukrainian War, but wind farms and solar power are thought to be resilient because they are distributed. As of 2024 about 1.7 GW can be imported from other European countries and it is hoped to increase this interconnection to 2 GW, but that will not be enough to cover peak demand. Many small gas-turbine generators are being installed to reduce the blackouts being caused by Russian attacks.

History
Electricity production fell from 296 TWh in 1991 to 171 TWh in 1999, then increased slowly to 195 TWh in 2007, before falling again. In 2014, consumption was 134 TWh after transmission losses of 20 TWh, with peak demand at about 28 GWe. 8 TWh was exported to Europe. In 2015 electricity production fell to about 146 TWh largely due to a fall in anthracite coal supplies caused by the War in Donbass.

In July 2019, a new wholesale energy market was launched, intended to bring real competition in the generation market and help future integration with Europe. The change was a prerequisite for receiving European Union assistance. It led to in increased price for industrial consumers of between 14% and 28% during July. The bulk of Energoatom output is sold to the government's "guaranteed buyer" to keep prices more stable for domestic customers.

Grid synchronisation with Europe
Since 2017 Ukraine sought to divest itself of dependency on the Unified Power System of Russia (UPS) and instead connect westwards to the synchronous grid of Continental Europe, thereby participating in European electricity markets. Power lines coupling the country to the grids of neighbouring Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Hungary existed, but were de-energised.

A necessary prerequisite of Ukrainian integration was for the country to successfully demonstrate it was capable of running in a islanded manner, maintaining satisfactory control of its own frequency. To do that would require disconnection from the UPS grid, and a date of 24 February 2022 was set. This proved to be the date Russia invaded Ukraine, but the disconnection nonetheless proceeded to schedule. Ukraine placed an urgent request to synchronise with the European grid to ENTSO-E, the European collective of transmission system operators of which it was a member, and on 16 March 2022 the western circuits were energised, bringing both Ukraine and Moldova, which is coupled to the Ukrainian grid, into the European synchronised grid. On 16 March 2022 a trial synchronisation started of the Ukraine and Moldova grid with the European grid.

Gas
Many small gas-turbine generators are used, as these are more difficult to attack than large gas-fired or coal-fired power plants.