External assistance for restoration is 10% of needs and will arrive after start of heating season - DTEK top manager
Within preparation for the heating season 2024-2025, DTEK energy holding can rely primarily on its own efforts, since external assistance, which is currently estimated at $40 million, or 10% of needs, will arrive later, said Executive Director Dmytro Sakharuk.
"In order to restore all our damaged stations to the level of early March, we need $350-400 million. Now the aid that is starting to arrive is at the level of $40 million. And, unfortunately, the pace of its provision is very slow. The decision to allocate funds was made in April. Only now, this week, a decision is being made to determine the winners of contracts for the supply of equipment that will continue to arrive in the next 12 months," he said at the European Business Association event "Global Outlook: Fostering Unity" on Tuesday.
"Therefore, if we talk about how we will get through the coming winter, we will get through it with our own equipment, with our own funds and with the efforts of our people," the top manager of DTEK emphasized, adding that banks are also not financing the restoration of thermal generation.
At the same time, Sakharuk noted that one should not evaluate such a pace of aid receipt - this should be treated as a process as it is, in accordance with the conditions and rules under which the partners work. He also added that due to the shelling by the Russian Federation, it is constantly necessary to carry out restoration work on the regional power companies' networks, which requires investments of billions of hryvnias.
"In the regions bordering the front line, this is never-ending work. There are areas such as Nikopol, Marhanets, where drones flying in every day drop grenades on 150 kV substations. These regions, these areas are simply de-energized because the transformer is burning. In Donetsk region, we are losing a lot of networks," Sakharuk stated.
According to him, 90 teams work daily in Donetsk region, restoring power supply to 10,000 to 100,000 consumers every day.
As reported, by October of this year, DTEK plans to restore 60-70% of the thermal generation destroyed by Russian attacks, starting in March of this year, provided that there is no new shelling. By the end of the year, the energy holding intends to invest UAH 4 billion in restoring generation. In the first eight months of 2024, DTEK Energy invested more than UAH 2.1 billion of its own funds in the repair and restoration of thermal power plants.
At the same time, the total need for financial resources to restore generation is $350-400 million, which is three times higher than the needs of the heating season, when the energy holding restored 10 units, investing $110 million of its own funds in the work.