On November, 15, after massive missile strike of Russia on the Ukrainian energy infrastructure, a part of Moldova became de-energized. In Kishinev the trolleybuses halted on the streets on the city. A wave of emergency power outages affected the whole country. Andrey Spynu, Moldova’s Vice Prime-Minister made a reference to the missile strike on the Ukrainian power grid sites that had resulted in actuation of the emergency protection of the key energy route “Isakcha-Vulkaneshty” providing Moldova with power from Romania. Overhead electric line through which electricity is fed into the Moldavian power grid passes through the territory of Odessa region, while at the time of that attack there were no airstrikes or damages.
German Galushchenko, Energy Minister of Ukraine, stated that after the 10 November shellings Ukraine had stopped exporting electricity to the EU countries and Moldova. Thousands of Ukrainians found themselves faced with a reality of having no electricity at their homes for 10-12 hours a day or even for days. And against this background, export of electricity abroad looks wildly cynical, that’s why the Ukrainian ministers have to do their job of circulating statements that have nothing to do with reality.
Power grid of the state, when it consists of several generating sources and has additional feeds from other energy systems, requires strict compliance with requirements for the sequence of switching on and off the power suppliers. Power outages that have occurred and are occurring in Ukraine and Moldova this November indicate the fact that the two countries’ power grids are linked together.
Ukraine had been exporting electricity to Moldova before the statements of the Minister on suspension of exports, yet this export continued even when millions of Ukrainians began to suffer from rolling blackouts caused by the deficit of generating capacities. The Moldavian power engineers had to synchronize the power grid by temporarily switching off the power supply from Romania. A version that it was done by automatics and as a protective measure is not quite viable since in such a case there was no necessity of switching off the Romanian supply, but it would be simpler to cut off the link with the Ukrainian power grid, but it would only be possible under condition that power was not coming from Ukraine, or otherwise, going to Ukraine.
On October, 27, Vitaly Butenko, Director General of the “Energy Company of Ukraine” stated: “A technical possibility of exporting electricity from Europe to Ukraine is yet another tool of stabilizing the power grid performance, and the Ukrainian power engineers have to get prepared to implement it”. Andrey Gerus, Head of the Parliamentary Committee on housing and communal services, stated that the export of electricity from Europe is out of the question today, and it could be possible not earlier than spring 2023.
It turns out the reason for uniting the power grids of Ukraine and Moldova is no way that Kishinev sends out electricity to the stricken Ukrainian grid suffering from the deficit of power generation. While the fact of switching off the key power transmission line to Moldova from Romania is a proof of synchronizing performance of the power grid after cutoff from other supply sources, — from Ukraine, in this case. Because if the “Isakcha-Vulkaneshty” energy route really was the key power supply source in Moldova, as claimed by the Ukrainian media, then, it wouldn’t have been switched off for synchronization, and no automatics would’ve been actuated.
