Belarus stops exporting electricity to Ukraine | Major political events in Belarus: assessments, forecasts, comments

Belarus has cut off commercial electricity supplies to Ukraine since November. This is stated in a letter from the general director of the company “Belenergo” to the partner firms. Olga Kosharnaya, a spokeswoman for the expert council at the Ukrainian Ministry of Energy, posted a photocopy of the document on Facebook on Monday, November 8. Minsk does not intend to conclude new framework contracts, the letter says.

At the same time, just a few days earlier, the Belarusian Energy Ministry announced the resumption of electricity supplies to the Ukrainian energy system. In accordance with the contract, deliveries will take place during November, the department said.

In 2021, Ukraine resumed importing electricity from Russia and Belarus. However, in May, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy signed a law on the right of the national energy regulator to restrict these imports.

Russia decided to stop supplying thermal coal to Kiev

From November 1, Russia decided to stop supplies of thermal coal to Kiev, citing growing domestic demand. After that, more than half of the power units at thermal power plants stopped working in Ukraine.

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Renewable energy storage technologies

Battery power plant

How to store the surplus electricity generated by wind turbines and solar panels on an industrial scale? Connect as many batteries as possible! In Germany, this technology has been practiced since 2014 at the Fraunhofer Institute in Magdeburg (photo). In the neighborhood, in Schwerin, Europe’s largest commercial 10 MW WEMAG battery power plant was put into operation.

Renewable energy storage technologies

Big batteries on a small island

The largest battery power plants operate in the United States and Asia. And on the Caribbean island of Sint-Eustatius (Netherlands Antilles), using this technology, they sharply reduced the supply of fuel for diesel electric generators. During the day, local residents, there are about 4 thousand of them, have been supplied with electricity by a solar power plant since 2016, and in the evening and at night – its batteries installed by a company from Germany.

Renewable energy storage technologies

Good pumps are key

Pumped storage power plants (PSPPs) are the oldest and well-established technology for storing electricity. When it is in excess, electric pumps pump water from the lower reservoir to the upper one. When it is needed, the water is discharged downward and powers the hydro generator. However, it is not always possible to find a suitable reservoir and the required height difference. In Herdeck in the Ruhr area, the conditions are right.

Renewable energy storage technologies

Storage location – Norwegian Fjords

The optimal natural conditions for a pumped storage power plant are in the Norwegian fjords. Therefore, from 2020, the NordLink submarine high-voltage power line with a length of 623 kilometers and a capacity of 1,400 MW will transfer surplus electricity from wind farms in northern Germany, where the terrain is completely flat, to the rocky coast of Norway through such a cable. And there they will be stored until required.

Renewable energy storage technologies

Electricity turns into gas

Surplus electricity can be stored as gas. By electrolysis, hydrogen is released from ordinary water, which is converted into methane with the help of CO2. It is pumped into gas storage facilities or used on site for refueling vehicles. The idea of the Power-to-Gas technology was born in 2008 in Germany, now there are about 30 pilot plants. Pictured is a pilot project in Rapperswil (Switzerland).

Renewable energy storage technologies

Liquefied hydrogen

The idea of Power-to-Gas gave impetus to development in different directions. Why, for example, convert hydrogen obtained through electrolysis into methane? He’s a great fuel in and of itself! But how is this rapidly flammable gas transported? Scientists at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg and Hydrogenious Technologies have developed a technology for its safe transportation in organic liquid tanks.

Renewable energy storage technologies

What’s the salt?

The salt is in those round tanks that are installed in the middle of a solar power plant on the outskirts of the Sahara near the city of Ouarzazate in Morocco. The molten salt stored in them acts as a battery system. It is heated during the day, and at night the stored heat is used to produce steam, which is fed to the turbine to generate electricity.

Renewable energy storage technologies

Cavern as an underground battery

In northwest Germany, there are many caverns – caves in salt layers. The energy company EWE and scientists from the University of Jena have turned one of them into a testing ground for the technology of storing electricity in brine, enriched with special polymers, which significantly increase the efficiency of chemical processes. In essence, this is an attempt to create a giant underground battery.

Renewable energy storage technologies

The largest “boiler” in Europe

Humanity has long been using heat to generate electricity. Renewable energy has set the task, on the contrary, to convert electricity, including surplus, into heat (Power-to-Heat). Vattenfall intends to complete the construction in Berlin of the largest “boiler” in Europe with a capacity of 120 MW for heating 30 thousand households by the end of 2019.

Renewable energy storage technologies

Energy storage units on four wheels

When millions of electric vehicles with powerful battery packs run on the roads of the world, they will become another major energy storage from renewable sources. This will be facilitated by smart grids (Smart grids): they will stimulate recharging at low prices in times of excess electricity. (Pictured is a gas station for electric vehicles in China).

Author: Andrey Gurkov