Why were emergency power outage schedules used? Explanation from 'Ukrenergo'.

Today, on November 11, energy companies in Ukraine used emergency power outage schedules as a preventative measure due to the threat of a missile strike. According to Yuriy Boyko, advisor to the Prime Minister and member of the supervisory board of 'Ukrenergo,' this practice will be applied in the future as well.

«In fact, the energy companies had to and did respond to the massive flight of enemy strategic military aircraft. Agree that it is hardly possible to name another example when such a large amount of resources was involved from the aggressor's side just for the sake of strike simulation», – he noted.

According to him, as a preventive step, energy companies implemented emergency outage schedules in regions that could mitigate the potential consequences of such strikes.

«By the way, already good news – these schedules have been canceled and accordingly, within a very short period of Time, I think electricity will be restored for all consumers», – added Boyko.

Reasons for power outages

The Prime Minister's advisor explained that the outages were due to a «very simple reason that is extremely difficult to explain from a technical point of view».

«When a powerful element in the power system is switched off either due to damage or due to automatic actions – this usually leads to the need for reconfiguration of the networks and very often this also leads to the shutdown of other network elements. Thus, a kind of cascade disconnection occurs. When we saw a potential threat of strikes on key elements simultaneously, the risk of a cascading accident increases sharply. Consequently, to avoid it, the load in the system is reduced», – he explained.

According to him, certain consumer groups are disconnected to balance the system, reduce the load, and lower the likelihood of cascading accidents.

Will the power outages continue?

In response to a question about the possibility of further power outages, Boyko explained that if the threat arises again, the situation will repeat.

«In case of a massive missile strike threat and therefore numerous damages, the energy companies will take a preventive step aimed at reducing the potential consequences of such attacks», – he noted.

In the morning of November 11, emergency power outage schedules were announced in the Sumy, Zhytomyr, Cherkasy, and Kharkiv regions at the initiative of 'Ukrenergo'. There were also reports of outages in Kyiv and the Dnipropetrovsk region.

The occupying country early in the night launched a strategic bomber Tu-95MS and a fighter jet MiG-31K into the air to simulate a massive strike. However, today there was no massive bombing, despite the fact that Russian planes were deployed to the launch area over the Caspian Sea.