Emergency and planned: what are the types of blackouts and what is the difference?
Popular
War
We need your help to give Ukrainians light and warmth. We collect funds for: power banks, flashlights, warm blankets, shelter equipment
HELP
The Russian army regularly shells the energy infrastructure of Ukraine. As of November 18, according to the Prime Minister of Ukraine Denys Shmyhal, almost half of the country's energy system is out of order due to Russian shelling.
Because of this, power engineers often use different types of power outages to balance the system, prevent it from breaking down even more and repair the damage that is possible. Here is an explanation of the types of outages and why they happen.
Planned or stabilization outages
Such power outages are predictable and occur according to predetermined schedules posted on the distribution system operator's website. Usually, electricity consumers in certain settlements are divided into groups, and each group is cut off for up to 4 hours.
Such outages are used to balance the operation of the power system when less electricity is produced than consumers need. Or in the case when power lines are damaged and can not transmit the necessary power. While the outages last, power engineers repair the damage. When the system is stabilized, outages may not be applied.
Emergency outages
In case of emergency outages, stabilization schedules are no longer valid. Such outages are unpredictable, they can happen:
• Emergency, which can occur in case of damage to networks or other infrastructure. Emergency outages are applied when Ukrenergo needs to additionally balance the power system. During emergency blackouts, the power may be off for an indefinite period of time.
• Local - when power grids in a specific limited area fail and cannot cope with the load. If the outages are local, the operator can provide consumers with an estimated time of power supply restoration, usually the time required for repair work.
What to do if there is no light for more than 7 hours?
Action algorithm in this situation:
▪️ go to the YASNO website, to the page with the outage schedule. There you can find out information about what is happening with the energy infrastructure at your address.
▪️ check whether there was a shutdown due to a local accident. If this is the case, for details, you should contact the Association of co-owners of an apartment building/Housing and maintenance office/Distribution network operator.
▪️ if the accident is not local, but it is a long-term emergency shutdown, then for information you need to contact the Facebook page of DTEK "Kyiv Electric Networks", where they should inform you when the light will be restored.
Blackout
No one can predict whether a complete blackout is possible in Ukraine, as Russian troops unpredictably attack various critical infrastructure facilities. Director of the Center for Energy Research Oleksandr Kharchenko said that in case of a complete blackout in Ukraine, the time to restore the power system may be from 3 to 10 days.
But even in the case of a long-term power outage, you can prepare for it to survive this period as comfortably as possible. Here we talked about how to prepare for winter, and what can be prepared in the absence of electricity. And here we wrote about travel life hacks that can be useful for you at home.
Recommended articles
1 min
War
1 min
Lifehacks
2 min
Travel