Korolchuk: if nuclear plants shut down, Ukraine will lack capacity to recover from blackout

Regular strikes on Ukraine’s energy system have led to a situation where, if nuclear power plants are shut down, it will be impossible to restart them.

This was stated on the “Kommersant Ukrainsky” channel by Yuriy Korolchuk, co-founder of the Kyiv Institute of Energy Strategies, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.

According to Korolchuk, last year Ukraine was in fact three times on the brink of a blackout — at those times the capacity of all nuclear power plants was reduced three times.

“The Russians struck, then waited two weeks while repairs were made, then struck again, and capacity was reduced again. The IAEA was officially informed of all this. They are obliged to. There wasn’t much talk about this here, but they were informed,” Korolchuk said.

He noted that this year the situation has worsened, since the energy system as a whole has been weakened by previous Russian strikes.

Korolchuk recalled that in November 2022 Ukraine experienced a controlled blackout by shutting down all nuclear power plants, and emerged from it with a capacity reserve.

“Back then there was an understanding of what to restart with, but now there isn’t. Back then we had almost 6 GW. It was easy to have available not a reserve, but capacity — thermal generation, hydroelectric stations. And thanks to this, everything was switched on evenly over three days. But now we don’t even have 4 GW, and four is needed,” Korolchuk warns.