Over 300 populated localities cut off from electricity in Ukraine due to bad weather

MOSCOW. Aug 7 (Interfax) - As of August 7, 306 populated localities in the Volyn, Zhitomir, Ivano-Frankovsk, Kiev, Kirovograd, Lvov, Rovno, Ternopol, Khmelnitsky, Chernovtsy, and Chernigov regions have been cut off from electricity during the thunderstorm that swept over Ukraine.

"In total, 81,000 consumers remain without electricity. Most of them are in the Ternopol and Volyn regions," Ukrainian media reported citing the Energy Ministry on Monday.

On August 6, an autotransformer at one of the 330 kW power substations of the Ukrenergo national energy company in the Odessa region was shut down twice, leaving 156,000 consumers without power supply twice over the past 24 hours, the ministry said.

"Two 330 kW power lines in the Dnepropetrovsk and Poltava regions were also shut down for a short period of time. A 330 kW power line in the Kiev region, which partly passes through the territory of Belarus, was shut down. Its section in Belarus was damaged," the ministry said.

As of August 7, a total of 451 communities remain blacked out, Ukrainian media reported with reference to Ukrenergo.

The company noted that on Saturday, August 5, the highest peak consumption was 10.7% more than the previous weekend. "For the power system it is a capacity of over five thermal power units, which should be additionally switched on," the system operator said.

Besides, the peak consumption was 1.5% higher than on the workday of Friday, which is unusual for the weekend. The reason is abnormal heat and active use of air conditioners.

Such high consumption is a substantial load on the energy system, as the ability to engage additional capacity is much limited due to repairs at many power plants, the national energy company said.

As reported, on Friday, August 4, one nuclear power unit was reconnected after scheduled repair. At the same time, on Saturday, August 5, the repair of another nuclear power unit, which has the same capacity, started.

On Monday, electricity is being imported from Slovakia throughout the day with a peak capacity of up to 350 MW, as well as up to 40 MW from Moldova from 9:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. and from 5:00 p.m. to 11:00 p.m., Ukrenergo said. There are no exports.