When the strikes moved from the wires to the turbines
The attacks of 2022 targeted substations, which can be repaired in days. The attacks of spring 2024 targeted generating plant, which cannot. The response had to be structural rather than a repair programme.
There is an important engineering distinction between the two campaigns. Substations, transformers and lines are modular: hit one, replace the component, restore supply in days. A turbine hall in a thermal plant is not modular. Rebuilding it is measured in years and the equipment is manufactured to order.
Through spring 2024 the strikes moved to generation. Thermal plants and hydro capacity were hit directly, and a significant share of dispatchable generation was lost.
How the response had to change
You cannot donate a power station. So the response went in three directions at once. Imports from the European grid rose, using the interconnection built in 2022. Partners financed gas turbines and cogeneration units — smaller, faster to install, harder to target. And distributed capacity was installed at critical loads: hospitals, water utilities, heating plants.
The system that emerges from this will be structurally different from the one inherited in 1991: less concentrated, more distributed, closer to the load. Forced by circumstance, but the direction is where European energy systems are heading anyway.
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