Ukraine to boost coal output to avoid imports from Russia-occupied part of Donbas – Vitrenko

Ukrainian Acting Energy Minister Yuriy Vitrenko says the country will boost domestic coal production to avoid its imports from Russia or Russia-occupied Donbas.

He made the comment during an interview with RFE/RL's Ukrainian bureau on February 14.

Read alsoCoal reserves at TPPs on decline, now 50% below normAsked why the coal mines, which had been idle for half a year, are now starting to operate, he said: "Not to import coal from [the so-called] 'LPR' and 'DPR' ['Luhansk and Donetsk People's Republics] or Russia. The answer is obvious... What we can do now is to increase [coal] production. There are also production cost issues along with many other challenges. But there are no simple solutions that would suit everyone. Sometimes you just need to choose the lesser of two evils," Vitrenko said.

"Now there is a shortage of coal. Because, on the one hand, we seem to be developing green energy, spending a huge amount of budget money, having forgotten about the capacity that should complement green energy. That is, energy storage capacities, those of pumped storage power plants [PSPPs], which are currently insufficient to conserve energy. And what do we get? In summer, we have a surplus of energy, in particular, green energy. But coal generation facilities are not repaired properly. However, in winter, we need coal generation," he added.

Ukraine's energy sector has found itself in a difficult situation this winter. According to the National Energy and Utilities Regulatory Commission (NEURC), one of the causes behind the situation is that since November 2020, coal reserves at thermal power plants (TPPs) have shrunk by 80%, and in early February 2021, they were almost 82% down year-over-year.

As of February 1, the power plants had less than 500,000 tonnes of coal in stock, while the lion's share of it was accumulated at two stations, namely Luhansk and Sloviansk TPPs.

In January and February, Ukraine even had to ask for technical assistance from Belarus' power grids. In February, Kyiv was also forced to import electricity from Russia.