Inside the race to thwart Putin and keep the lights on in war-torn Ukraine
Boss of country’s biggest private energy company tells Matt Oliver about its pivot to renewables
For most of Europe, the sight of 19 wind turbines on the horizon is a pretty ordinary thing. But look a little more closely and the Tyligulska wind farm, in southern Ukraine, seems nothing short of miraculous.
Assembled during wartime in just nine months, the project has become a symbol of Ukraine’s tenacious resistance against Russian attempts to cripple the country’s infrastructure.
Around 300 engineers for DTEK, Ukraine’s biggest private energy company, worked around the clock from August last year to May to bring the 114 megawatt scheme online, using equipment they cobbled together after the evacuation of foreign contractors.
These engineers laboured in open fields just 60 miles from the front line.
They braved floods, freezing temperatures and even volleys of Russian missiles that streaked overhead – fired from warships in the Black Sea – forcing them to dive into bomb shelters.
Today, the turbines – each about 650ft (200m) tall from the ground to the tip of their blades – are supplying vital power to Ukrainians after the country’s electricity grid took a sustained pounding last winter.
They are also emblematic of Ukraine’s push to replace its fleet of ageing coal plants, which supplied around one quarter of all power before the war, with cleaner sources of energy. There are not just sound environmental reasons for this, but security ones too, says Maxim Timchenko, chief executive of DTEK. With a single, devastating missile strike, Russia can take out an entire 300 megawatt coal power unit, he says. By comparison, Tyligulska’s 19 turbines stand hundreds of feet apart and make much smaller targets. This kind of thinking underpins much of the work to rebuild Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, which Vladimir Putin’s forces have been mercilessly targeting with missiles and drones. But things stepped up last autumn, when Russian forces began striking coal-fired power plants, electricity sub-stations and other grid equipment across the country in an attempt to break people’s spirits in the coldest months.
Strikes rained down daily upon these facilities, leaving only tangled masses of metal behind – and Ukrainians without light and heat in temperatures that can fall to minus 20C (minus 4F).
At some point, every single coal or hydroelectric power plant in the country has been damaged, in many instances killing or injuring workers.
Timchenko, who has been unable to return to his family home in Donetsk since Russia invaded Crimea and parts of south-east Ukraine in 2014, remembers the particularly “massive” attack in November, which plunged the country into mass blackouts.
“The date we all remember is Nov 23,” he recalls during an interview with The Sunday Telegraph in his company’s London office. On that day, Russia unleashed a barrage of 70 cruise missiles and five drones, ruthlessly targeting power and water systems. “We lost every coal power station except one – it was a blackout,” he says.
Ukraine’s transmission grid operator, Ukrenergo, and DTEK, which is responsible for roughly 40pc of power distribution in the country, dispatched teams of engineers to repair power lines, substations and the hydropower facilities. Timchenko says the system was eventually restored in 24 hours – although some homes and businesses in parts of the country remained without power for days, according to reports. Throughout the winter, the Ukrainian crews became adept at restoring power after strikes in a matter of hours.
Although things have improved since then, he is in awe of DTEK’s 55,000 employees, be it the engineers who volunteer to repair grid equipment near the front line, power station workers who remain on sites during air raids, or staff at the company’s Kyiv HQ who have worked with Blitz spirit throughout the conflict.
“I never expected such a sacrifice, such a commitment,” says Timchenko.
Around 5,000 of DTEK’s staff – many former coal miners – have also joined the fighting directly. In total, 187 have died so far. Even Timchenko is never far
from danger. “It is frightening,” he says, “especially when I’m leaving my apartment in Kyiv and you see drones, you see the hit and then a big explosion.”
The company is part of a group of businesses owned by Ukrainian Rinat Akhmetov, whose empire also includes football club Shakhtar Donetsk and the Azovstal steelworks, which became the focus of fierce fighting in Mariupol.
In the short term, DTEK is still seeking donations of equipment including high-voltage power transformers and circuit breakers, which are used in thermal plants.
But in the long run, the company is pivoting to renewable energy, with the aim of making its assets cleaner, more distributed and resilient to attacks. This will also involve “smart grids”, of the kind now being built in the Bucha area, which can adapt to partial outages.
Eventually, Timchenko believes
‘We lost every coal power station except one, but wind turbines are much more difficult to target’
Ukraine could become a major green energy supplier to the rest of Europe.
That may sound far off, but Ukraine is already hooked up to the rest of the Continent and has even managed to export surplus electricity at certain points during the war. The country’s government has set a target to reach 50pc renewable power by 2030.
The first phase of the Tyligulska wind farm, a three-part project that will eventually generate 500 megawatts of electricity, is just one step along the way to this goal. Phase two will add another 64 turbines and cost €450m (£386m), money that Timchenko is now trying to raise from investors. This is the main reason for his visit to London.
Given the time it takes to build a wind farm in Britain – more than 10 years on average – perhaps the Ukrainians could teach us a thing or two?
“You know, we will share our knowledge of how to do things quickly,” says Timchenko. “But I don’t want to share with anybody [the experience of ] how to do it in war.”