Since 10 October, Russia has been carrying out a massive attack on the Ukrainian energy infrastructure. Damaged facilities are being quickly repaired, but a number of critical facilities are out of operation. Because of this, the regulator is forced to resort to rolling blackouts. This creates understandable discomfort for ordinary citizens, but it cannot be compared with the stress for industrial consumers. Especially vulnerable are the food industry enterprises, which have high requirements for product safety and where the lack of power supply threatens to disrupt manufacturing processes and losses on a batch scale.
On 27 October, Ukrenergo National Electricity Company announced that it was going to impose even longer, unprecedented emergency blackouts. In Kyiv and the Kyiv oblast alone, there was a power shortage of 30% consumption.
How do food processing companies balance between the lack of electricity and the need to meet the demand for food in such conditions?
Does the Ukrainian industry have a similar experience of severe power supply shortages? Ukraine has already experienced several energy emergencies in its recent history. And not all of them belong to the crisis period of the 1990s.
Thus, in 2017, due to the blockade of railway communication with certain areas of Donetsk and Lugansk oblasts by activists, the supply of anthracite coal was stopped. As a result, consumers in seven oblasts, mainly in the north and east of the country, were under the threat of rolling blackouts. The Federation of Employers of Ukraine then estimated the daily losses of industrial enterprises in these regions at 20 million UAH.
With such an experience the sector was able to form and work out a clear procedure in case of a critical shortage of capacity.
How is the industry disconnected? Rolling blackouts are applied to enterprises according to a certain rating. Critical infrastructure facilities – hospitals, public utilities, telecommunications and communications companies – are virtually not exposed to them. And also – continuous cycle enterprises, the restart of which will cost more than keeping them in operation.
For a number of large industrial facilities, such as chemical plants, the level of environmental emergency standby reserve of energy supply is applied – that is, sufficient to maintain the operation of equipment that secures the safety of production. Food industry enterprises do not fall in these "first ranks."
So what outage protection tools are available to them? To start with, modern plants from the very beginning, even at the design stage, provide for backup power supplies – connection to backup lines, which should be useful in case of interruptions in the main channel. But this does not always work.
Thus, in November 2017, power lines were damaged in Kyiv Oblast due to squally winds. Among others, the enterprises of the Agromars complex (TM Gavrylivski Kurchata) were de-energised. This resulted in a mass death of chickens in a few hours – about 200,000 birds died. The company sued Kyivoblenergo load serving entity (unsuccessfully), as the backup line was not switched on for the period of accident elimination.
In the event of a short absence of electricity, the need is covered by generators, the resource of which is usually enough for 5-6 hours to maintain critical functions of a plant. Such energy is significantly – three to five times – more expensive and requires diesel fuel reserves. In addition, it is almost impossible to purchase such powerful generators "against the clock" due to increased demand and exhausted stocks – they have to be ordered abroad.
And in general, there is nothing to counteract a long – more than a day – power outage. And even if it is possible to avoid direct losses, the level of product quality, as a rule, suffers greatly.
Who suffers first? Even short-term temperature drops are harmful or destructive for all food products. The most difficult is for the meat and dairy industry, where both raw materials and ready-made products belong to the perishable category.
Due to the specifics of production, dairy factories need to maintain an uninterrupted power supply, as milk processing is a systematic and continuous production process, the Union of Dairy Enterprises of Ukraine reports.
"As a result of the power outage without warning, dairy processing enterprises have already irrevocably lost significant amounts of both raw milk and manufactured products," says Arsen Didur, executive director of the association.
Oblast LSEs (Oblenergos) put forward the same requirements for dairies as for all customers – to reduce electricity consumption by up to 50%. Partial economizing is achieved by switching to night mode of production, when the load on the system is lower. However, further reduction of energy consumption is fraught with problems for the entire industry.
Didur lists them: decline in production volumes of final products; reduction of taxes, including from wages; decrease in purchase prices for raw milk; reduction in livestock; shortage of Ukrainian dairy products on the shelves of retail chains; growth of imports of finished dairy products. The Association asks "to maintain provision of energy for dairies."
And such requests flow to the government from all sides.
And what about bread? Bakeries belong to critical infrastructure facilities, so there will be no thrift in this subsector. However, emergency shutdowns are also relevant for them.
The All-Ukrainian Baker Association has collected information about the need to supply generators to their enterprises to ensure uninterrupted operation. This application has been sent to donor organisations.
What are the fruit-and-vegetable group producers afraid of? Operators of long-term storage products, who may seem not even notice a several-hour power outage, also need special energy control. This is particularly true for fruits and vegetables, whose current storage capacity in Ukraine is already insufficient.
As Pavlo Bulgakov, an international vegetable storage consultant, describes in his column for AgroTimes, refrigerated vegetables for the borscht set can withstand temporary short power outages in professional storage facilities. In particular, chilled carrots, beets, white cabbage can pass such trials without losses.
"Temperature changes are not good for them, because the heating of products begins, although not so critical to say that these vegetables will immediately be spoiled. But they will have a higher percentage of losses than under stable electricity supply," noted Pavlo Bulgakov.
This does not mean that such outages will pass without trace and will not require additional investments. A room with potatoes and onions should be at least aired by running ventilation.
How do they plan to solve these problems? The request of the food industry for "special energy treatment" and inclusion of industry enterprises in the list of critical infrastructure is being considered by the Cabinet of Ministers. According to Minister of the Economy of Ukraine Yuliya Svyrydenko, the issue of uninterrupted electricity supply to food industry enterprises during rolling blackouts will be discussed with the Ministry of Energy and local authorities.