Ukrainians promised power despite Russian terror
The head of Ukraine’s largest power company promised his countrymen a secure supply of electricity this winter despite the heaviest attack on any European country since World War Two.
Maxim Timchenko, chief executive of DTEK, said that, a year ago, 90 per cent of the company’s production had been destroyed and its hydroelectric capacity had fallen 45 per cent.
“But, today, we have well restored the network so that Ukraine has sufficient electricity and even can export a certain amount,” he said.
The Russian attack has accelerated a diversification of the company’s power system into renewables and storage batteries which are harder to hit.
“A single Russian Iskander missile can destroy a coal-fired station that supplies electricity to 250,000 people. But they would require at least 50 missiles to remove the same capacity in an aeolian park (of wind power),” he said.
DTEK is building two giant aeolian parks. It has finished the first phase of one in Tyligulska on the Black Sea less than 100 kilometres from the front line, in co-operation with a Danish company Vestas. When phase two is completed at the end of 2026, it will supply 500 megawatts. It is building a second, larger one at Poltava in central Ukraine.
“Solar energy is equally difficult to destroy. The demand for this is exploding in Ukraine. In co-operation with British company Octopus Energy, we have started a project to install thousands of panels on the roofs of factories, shops, offices and public buildings across the country,” he said.
DTEK has paid a terrible price for the Russian terror. Since the start of the invasion in February 2022, it has lost 370 of its employees. In 2024, it suffered 13 large-scale attacks, of which 10 hit its major facilities.
“No other energy system in the world has been hit by such a level of attacks. We have more than 3,900 men and women who go at once to the site of an attack and work to restore supply as soon as possible, Over the last 18 months, we have spent 160 million euros on this work.”
In October 2024, the Russians captured the site of Kurakhivska, in the Donetsk region, the site of a large DTEK power plant. In the weeks ahead of the occupation, the company staff put into operation an elaborate plan to dismantle the facility, from the giant turbines to the smallest cables. They have since been used in other facilities of the company.
“We have learnt for a long time that, when Russia attacks our power system, it has no limits. To them, the lives of our workers count for nothing. So, for each major facility, we have a detailed evacuation plan so that we can quickly bring out the workers and their families and rehouse them in other facilities,” he said.
DTEK has taken legal action at international tribunals for war reparations for all the damage Russia has done to its properties since 2014, including those in
Crimea.
Ukraine produces 70 per cent of its energy from renewable sources. It has the largest nuclear power stations in Europe, with a history of 70 years. It operates four nuclear power plants, with an installed capacity of over 13 GWe, ranking seventh in the world in 2020. In 2021, they produced 81 TWh, over 55 per cent of the country’s total power generation.
It has Europe’s largest nuclear power plant at Zaporizhzhia. Since 2022, the Russian army has occupied it.
Ukraine has the second largest known gas reserves in Europe. As of 2019, it had 1.09 trillion cubic metres of reserves, second only to Norway with 1.53 trillion cubic metres.
It is the largest country by area in Europe, with 604,000 square kilometres. Timchenko said that it had the potential to become a supplier of clean energy for Europe and improve the energy security of the continent.
“Ukraine is the sleeping giant of European energy,” he said. “We must now invest in the energy connections between our country and Europe, to realise this potential.”
He has been CEO of DTEK since its foundation in 2005. He graduated from the Donetsk State Academy of Management and University of Manchester. He began his career as an accountant at PricewaterhouseCoopers.
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