On Feb. 24, 2022, Ukraine''s grid operators were entering into "island mode"—a state of autonomy from other neighboring grid systems—when their country was invaded by Russia. This shift was a test that was part of plans already underway for months to desynchronize from the Russian grid and synchronize with the European Union''s.
After the initial invasion, Ukraine operated in island mode until March 16, 2022, when the country was finally able to synchronize its grid to Europe''s. A massive undertaking, islanding then synchronizing a grid would typically take a country years—but Ukraine did it in a matter of weeks, made possible in part due to the technical assistance provided by the United States through the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) in the years leading up to, and months during and after, the island mode tests.
Grid operators "really made a huge difference when they decided to conduct the trial operation in island mode," said Kateryna Deikun-Stepanchuk, senior engineer in the Department of Balance Reliability at the Ukrainian power company, Transmission System Operator NPC Ukrenergo. "It was really challenging and dangerous, but nevertheless, our Ukrenergo team around all the regions of Ukraine became united in making it happen."
Grid stability is no easy feat even under the best of circumstances. Electric grids are delicately interconnected systems in which the supply of available energy and the use of that energy must be maintained in constant balance. Synchronizing one grid to another requires a precise match of the frequency, phase, and voltage of electric current. Failure to do so could result in grid collapse (a blackout) of both power systems and possibly require weeks of repair to make them functional.
Now, after more than a year of ongoing warfare, Ukraine''s power is still on. Crews from Ukrenergo are on call 24/7 to respond to targeted attacks on their grid infrastructure and to address local communities'' needs within hours after a missile strike to get power flowing again.
All of this puts Ukraine''s power grid operators at the forefront of a multifront battle: "Our heroes are those people who keep our power system going," Deikun-Stepanchuk said.
Not only are grid operators maintaining critical wartime power services, but some have heeded the call to cross over into military operations. "There are many people in our company who joined the army. Very nice guys who work in our office and regional centers. Some of them are very young and could never have imagined that the time would come to hold a weapon in their hands! Never. But they joined the ranks of the Armed Forces," Deikun-Stepanchuk explained. "Unfortunately, we lost many of them. This is our pain. This is our sadness. And these are our heroes forever."
Ukraine is maintaining light, heat, and other power needswhileits grid is constantly targeted by missiles and other attacks. Resilience—for the grid, for the people operating the grid, for Ukraine—is essential for the country now and as they look to the future.
Through USAID, the United States works with Ukraine''s government, energy private sector, and civil society to enhance Ukraine''s energy security and transform Ukraine''s energy sector into a modern, market-oriented, EU-integrated engine of growth. USAID is providing direct support to improve Ukraine''s energy policy, legal, and regulatory environment and makes direct investments in the electricity, gas, and heat sectors.
In partnership with USAID, the U.S. Department of Energy''s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) issupporting deployment of renewable-generation-based microgridsthat will enable Ukraine to increaseits energy independence and resilience by integrating more renewables intoits energy mix.
Ukraine''s aging grid has been a challenge to maintain even before the war brought targeted attacks. Before the invasion, NREL was supporting the USAID Ukraine mission and Ukrainian officials on modernization plans to transition to greater renewable energy penetration.
But "renewables don''t inherently make a grid more resilient," said Eliza Hotchkiss, researcher and resilience and energy security analyst at NREL. "They need to be designed to be more resilient."
The USAID-NREL Partnership''s original goal in Ukraine was to: (1) provide technical support and data analysis for distribution systems siting and project investment decisions, and (2) help plan for bringing more wind and solar ontoits nuclear-dominant system to meet Ukraine''s decarbonization and energy independence targets and to align with the European Union''s targets for a clean hydrogen-based energy future.
"So much of that planning went to the back burner after the invasion," said NREL researcher Ilya Chernyakhovskiy. "Then, the focus became: What can we do on our side that''s helpful now? There''s much more of a here-and-now mentality and a response to immediate circumstances."
As attacks continue, a priority in Ukraine is to maintain electricity supply at key facilities—like hospitals and schools—and at thousands of "points of invincibility" that allow residents to warm themselves or charge personal electronic devices when their home''s power is out.
Most of these key facilities have diesel backup generators that kick in when grid power goes out, which require a steady stream of diesel fuel to operate. Adding solar power to a diesel-generator-powered microgrid can significantly reduce fuel use and extend its operation without refueling. For example, a 2021 NREL study found that pairing solar generation with a diesel generator could potentially extend operation twofold, from an initial seven days to almost 14 days.
NREL is working with USAID, the Ministry of Energy of Ukraine, and the Ministry for Communities, Territories, and Infrastructure Development of Ukraine to design a microgrid pilot project that will demonstrate how a solar photovoltaic (PV)-plus-storage system could enhance resilience under the present conditions in Ukraine. NREL is providing technical assistance on sizing the solar-plus-storage system for the load, and USAID will provide financial support to build the pilot project.
Looking further into the future, NREL and USAID are planning to help Ukraine and its power system operators build a cleaner and more resilient energy system. But this will take time, as NREL has experienced through its disaster recovery portfolio.
Despite the invasion, in March 2023, Ukraine set a goal to have 50% ofits power from renewable energy sources and 50% from nuclear energy by 2035. Hotchkiss and Chernyakhovskiy meet regularly with the USAID Ukraine mission to discuss how goals for renewable energy and energy efficiency are maintaining or changing during the war.
To start, staff from Ukrenergo are already engaging with the Global Power System Transformation (G-PST) Consortium, which brings together power system operators from around the world to share ideas and solutions for decarbonization. NREL serves as G-PST''s secretariat and its lead organization for providing technical support to partnered system operators in emerging economies, such as Ukraine. UkrEnergo staff are actively participating in G-PST''s peer-learning program, which includes visits to NREL to meet with NREL researchers and staff from other power system operators.
With funding from USAID, NREL has recently published solar resource data for all of Ukraine. This data—showing the average amount of sunlight received over the course of the year in four-square-kilometer resolution—serves as the foundation for many other NREL-developed software platforms that help size and design solar and solar-plus-storage systems.
The most popular of these, PVWatts®, has been translated into the Ukrainian language, to enable any Ukrainian to see how much energy solar PV panels on their building could generate. Updating the PVWatts tool for the Ukraine partnership involved collaboration with teams across many of NREL''s research capacities, from the Center for Integrated Mobility Sciences, to the Grid Planning and Analysis Center, to the Strategic Energy Analysis Center.
For now, the underlying solar resource data comes from just three years of satellite observations (2017–2019), but the NREL solar resource team will expand this to 20 years of data soon. NREL teams will also be adding other renewable energy resource data for Ukraine to the RE Data Explorer platform that allows people around the world to assess their local renewable energy potential and inform renewable energy development decisions. Critically, wind resource data is anticipated to be added for Ukraine by early 2024.
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