A technological disruption in Ukraine’s power system occurred on the morning of January 31, leading to cascading outages. Emergency blackout schedules were introduced in several regions.
Ukraine’s Energy Minister Denys Shmyhal said that at 10:42 a.m. there was a simultaneous shutdown of a 400 kV transmission line between the power systems of Romania and Moldova, as well as a 750 kV line between the western and central parts of Ukraine.
The incident triggered cascading outages in Ukraine’s power grid and the activation of automatic protection systems at substations. As a result, nuclear power plant units were unloaded.
Special emergency outage schedules are currently in place in Kyiv, Kyiv region, Zhytomyr region and Kharkiv region. Energy workers are continuing efforts to restore electricity supply.
Power supply is expected to be fully restored within the next few hours.