A blackout means complete loss of controllability of the power system, when dispatcher commands or physical switching of equipment do not lead to restoration of power supply. Planned outages are not a blackout, but a purposeful restriction of electricity supply for a certain group of consumers to minimise the risks of accidents and maintain a stable frequency in a certain area of the power system.
Despite the unprecedented scale of damage to Ukraine’s energy system, we quite successfully passed the test of the first frost, otherwise emergency shutdowns might have happened. It was not the case, because people work round-the-clock to restore the energy system, and every action of electricians and gas technicians takes place with thoughts about the consumer.
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