Ukraine's energy preparations for winter already in 'active stage': ministry

Ukraine's preparations for the coming winter are already in the "active stage" with a focus on protecting key energy infrastructure and the repair and restoration of facilities, the country's energy ministry said Aug. 17.

The ministry said the main areas of planning were discussed at a coordination meeting chaired by Oleksiy Kuleba, Ukraine's deputy head of the office of the president.

During the meeting, energy minister German Galushchenko identified the key areas for preparation, with the ministry saying the "restoration of energy facilities and preparations for autumn-winter 2024/25 are in the active stage."

It said the main areas of focus were the protection of infrastructure, repairs and restoration of facilities, the development of distributed generation, and the provision of critical infrastructure with backup power sources.

"The ministry collects and constantly updates data on the needs of the energy sector in preparation for the new autumn-winter period," Galushchenko said.

"After all, given the ongoing destruction and constant shelling, the needs are significant," he said.

Galushchenko said Ukraine continued to look to its international partners for cooperation, including financial support to add capacity to the power system "as soon as possible" and guarantee reliable energy supply for key facilities.

Provided that the necessary funding for projects is available and active work on restoration and repairs continues, Galushchenko said it would be possible to add about 3 GW of capacity to the system by the end of 2024.

The EU's energy commissioner Kadri Simson said Aug. 19 that attacks on Ukraine's energy infrastructure had escalated over the past few months, destroying power generation assets, back-up generators and storage.

"Weaponization of energy in this way is unprecedented," Simson said on X, formerly known as Twitter.

"Ukraine must not be left alone for its most difficult winter yet. Therefore, I urge everyone who has the possibility to help Ukraine before the cold season arrives. The European Commission will help dispatch and deliver your support."

Storage filling

Ukraine is targeting gas storage stocks of some 13.2 Bcm by the start of November in order to meet winter demand.

According to S&P Global Commodity Insights data, Ukraine ended the last winter season with around 7.8 Bcm in stock and had built stocks to almost 11 Bcm by Aug. 17.

That compares with gas in stock at end-March 2023 of 9 Bcm and a storage level of almost 13 Bcm as of Aug. 17 last year.

Stocks peaked at 15.5 Bcm ahead of the last winter, which included some 2.5 Bcm of gas stored in Ukraine by foreign traders.

This year traders have been net withdrawing from Ukrainian storage sites, according to Commodity Insights analysis, contributing to the lower stock levels in 2024.

Ukrainian gas storage sites were also targets of Russian missile and drone attacks through March and April, potentially dampening the appetite of European traders to store gas in Ukraine.

A narrower summer-winter spread also made storage economics less attractive in 2024 compared with last year.

Platts, part of S&P Global Commodity Insights, assessed the Dutch TTF day-ahead price on Aug. 16 at Eur38.95/MWh compared with a Winter 24 assessment of Eur43.11/MWh.