SIMFEROPOL, December 25. /TASS/. The Saki TETs (combined heat and power plant) in Crimea, where malfunctions were registered Thursday morning, has been put into operation again and is now working to full capacity, deputy chairman of the KrymTETs company Taras Tsely said Thursday.
KrymTETs unites the Simferopol, Saki and Kamysh-Burunskaya (Kerch) combined heat and power (CHP) plants. “The Saki and Kamysh-Burunskaya plants are currently working at full capacity,” Tsely told TASS.
Repair work at the Simferopol plant — one of Crimea’s largest — currently continues. Generation of electric power at it has been suspended. Startup operations after the repair are due to kick off this night.
“Overall, we produce some 130 MW of electric power (general data on the KrymTETs company). For Crimea today, each megawatt is as good as gold. The Simferopol CHP plant stands idle now, and it is really a great loss for the Republic of Crimea,” Tsely added.
“This night, we will launch all startup operations, eliminate some problems that appeared due to a systemic accident, and tomorrow all will be restored,” he said.
Crimea blackouts
On Thursday morning, Crimean Fuel and Power Industry Minister Sergey Yegorov told TASS of two accidents that occurred at the combined heat and power plants in Simferopol and Saki. In connection with that, the peninsula’s own electric power generation dropped to 300-320 MW.
In the morning hours, only 400 MW is coming to Crimea from Ukraine. Yegorov recalled that during peak hours, the electric power consumption volume on the peninsula totals 1,000 megawatts.
“In connection with the deficit of electric power in Crimea, we are forced to introduce rolling blackouts of consumers again,” he said.
Russian Crimean Affairs Minister Oleg Savelyev told journalists in Moscow on Thursday that after electric power supply was restored in Crimea, new blackouts were “hardly possible.”
“I think we will not face such limitations in the near future,” he said.
Savelyev said Crimea’s electric power grid will become completely independent by the end of 2017 thanks to events as part of Russia's federal target program on Crimea’s development.
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The Republic of Crimea
The Republic of Crimea and Sevastopol, a city with a special status on the Crimean Peninsula, where most residents are Russians, refused to recognize the legitimacy of authorities brought to power amid riots during a coup in Ukraine in February 2014.
Crimea and Sevastopol adopted declarations of independence on March 11. They held a referendum on March 16, in which 96.77% of Crimeans and 95.6% of Sevastopol voters chose to secede from Ukraine and join the Russian Federation. Russian President Vladimir Putin signed the reunification deals March 18.
Despite Moscow’s repeated statements that the Crimean referendum on secession from Ukraine was in line with the international law and the UN Charter and in conformity with the precedent set by Kosovo’s secession from Serbia in 2008, the West and Kiev have refused to recognize the legality of Crimea’s reunification with Russia.
Crimea had joined the Russian Empire in 1783, when it was conquered by Russian Empress Catherine the Great.
In the Soviet Union, Crimea used to be part of Russia until 1954, when Nikita Khrushchev, the first secretary of the USSR’s Communist Party, transferred it to Ukraine's jurisdiction as a gift.
With the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Crimea became part of newly independent Ukraine and remained in that capacity until March 2014, when it reunified with Russia after some 60 years as part of Ukraine.
According to the Crimean and Ukrainian statistics bodies, as of early 2014, Crimea had a population of 1,959,000 people; Sevastopol has a population of 384,000 people.
Work to integrate the Crimean Peninsula into Russia’s economic, financial, credit, legal, state power, military conscription and infrastructure systems is actively underway now that Crimea has acceded to the Russian Federation.