In preparation for the heating season, DTEK Energy managed to restore three of the five thermal power units destroyed by enemy shelling; in addition, the company plans to reactivate another 500 MW of thermal generating capacity.

DTEK Executive Officer Dmytro Sakharuk announced this during a Business Breakfast with Volodymyr Fedorin at Forbes Ukraine on Wednesday.

"We did everything possible to return the damaged power units back to the power system. There is progress in this – we returned three units to operation," he said.

At the same time, there are still two destroyed power units that the company will not have time to restore before the beginning of winter due to significant damage.

"We have two more units that we will not have time to complete before the winter, because they are very badly damaged. It takes a lot of time to do this. We will do this, there are plans for this, but we will have to do them before the start of the winter period We won't have time," the executive officer said.

Also, according to him, the energy holding plans to bring out of mothballing and put into operation an additional 500 MW of thermal generation.

"This is not cheaper than restoring destroyed power units – it's just faster. Equipment from those units that cannot be put into operation can be transferred to these units. We plan to return 500 MW to operation," Sakharuk said.

He explained that it is difficult to assess the degree of reliability of these power units, since they were mothballed due to their technical condition, but in war conditions they must be used as an additional resource.

"In war conditions, in conditions where every megawatt is important, everything needs to be used. In fact, we are using all available resources to get through the winter, and even such unconventional ones that we would not have thought of resorting to if there had been no war," Sakharuk said.

In addition, according to him, the company is converting units from anthracite to gas group coals: one such power unit was transferred to a different grade of fuel this season.

Also, according to the executive officer, the energy holding has launched 15 new mine faces from the beginning of 2023 out of 27 planned by the end of the year.

"We provide ourselves with coal and will be able to partially sell it to Centrenergo, if it needs it, and to other consumers. That is, I don't see any problems with coal," he said.

In preparation for the heating season, DTEK Energy's workers cleared 6,000 km of power lines from forests, inspected and repaired 130,000 km of power lines, and repaired almost 1,500 substations of different voltage classes.

As Sakharuk said, the energy holding as a whole spent almost UAH 11 billion on preparations for winter.

"If we exclude drone and missile attacks, then we have a chance to get through the winter normally," he said.