Ukraine’s government has wanted to integrate its power systems – both literal and figurative – with the EU’s for a number of years now. It is in fact part of the rationale behind Vladimir Putin’s unlawful and brutal invasion of Russia’s southwestern neighbour.
But the meshing together of the continental electricity grid with Ukraine’s was seen as a long-term project. Regulators on both sides had a lot of work to do beforehand with testing and upgrading infrastructure that has been in place since the Soviet era.
The EU in particular did not want to rush the process in case Ukraine's huge grid caused problems from the rest of the system.
War changes everything though, and this week Europe’s association of network transmission operators (ENTSO-E) announced that the work was already complete and that Ukraine’s grid has been synchronised.
It is a remarkable turnaround whichever way you look at it. A couple of weeks ago, Ukraine’s network operator successfully...