RW: Lessons from the grid...in Ukraine

“At the worst imaginable time, Ukraine’s grid was stranded”

The incomprehensible sounds and images of devastation in Ukraine continue. 

Those of us blessed to be in “the lucky country” can’t even begin to imagine the constant horror facing every last soul in Ukraine.

Lyrics spring to mind…”Our shoreline was never invaded, our country was never in flames. This is the calm we breathe..”

We must all pray for and will for peace in Ukraine like our collective future depends on it, (because it may very well be the case).

As Ukraine’s population provides a brave and heroic example in the face of relentless aggression, its electricity supply grid also serves as something of a case study. 

It points to what can go wrong (and right) when sudden change on a tectonic scale, occurs in the grid system.

To the backdrop of what can only be described as a political quagmire, Ukraine had been planning and working towards switching supply from Russia to the EU.

Simple on paper, but a herculean task in reality.

Years in the making, the most critical stage for the whole project was a single test where Ukraine would disconnect from Russia entirely, and operate independently for 72 hours.

Then the unthinkable. Roughly 4 hours in the invasion started… 

A balancing act

At the worst imaginable time, Ukraine’s grid was stranded. It became an island. Worse still what was meant to be a controlled 72 hour test morphed into a weeks long fight for survival.

Hospitals, life support systems, nuclear plant cooling towers (trains, vital for refugee flight) and a million other things we would take for granted, all hanging by a thread… 

With artillery shells raining down and destruction unfolding around them, teams of engineers, workers and secondary systems experts responded rapidly. Synchronising and re-synchronising the network, re-routing supply, switching and isolating constantly in a frenzied, system-wide effort to stave off a total grid crisis. These teams are indeed unsung heroes and heroines of the unfolding saga.

All of which points to a very delicate balancing act, achieving that crucial equilibrium of 50 Hertz across a chaotically changing network in a war zone! If the needle moves too far one way or too far the other it’s game over…

When the dust settles, there might be some very useful grid management insights to be gleaned from all this.

When the dust settles, there might be some very useful grid management insights to be gleaned from all this.

Electrons and miracles

In a twist of bitter irony, Russia’s invasion actually accelerated Ukraine’s integration into the EU grid.

A massive co-ordinated effort initially with inter-connection to nearby Moldova meant that in a few short weeks Ukraine was able to synchronise and take supply from the EU. Ensuring joined network stability and other challenges persist, but that major milestone has already been achieved.

EU Energy Commissioner, Kadri Simson, put it bluntly as “a year’s work in two weeks”, something of a modern day miracle. For an industry often derided as being glacial in its rate of progress, mired in complex regulation this stark example provides a challenge to all.

Yes, it can be done, and done quickly.

Closer to home

A world away from war torn Ukraine, these themes resonate.

As Net Zero, collides with aging infra-structure-(and a grid that’s now being asked to do the opposite of what it was designed for)-and intersects with reliability and affordability, we are going to need balance more than ever.

Balancing the network operationally of course, during the transition. But more importantly balance in the boarder sense. A pragmatic injection of balance being brought to bear on elements of the long, drawn out energy debate that continues here. Balance in relation to energy mix, balance with infrastructure requirements, balance between “big and central” or “local and micro”. The binary reasoning and “either or” just isn’t working.

At some point there will need to be a balanced view, and that view will bring consensus and action.

Finally, maybe “we” can make it happen faster also. It shouldn’t take a war to make this point. 

Compressing years into weeks might be a bridge too far, but let’s stop talking in decades for starters. 

Can we as investors, policy-makers, regulators, asset owners and operators or market participants just get on board, take up the challenge that Ukraine provides and just get on with it?