Ukraine’s new energy system is being designed around four levels of security. Energy Minister Denys Shmyhal said the country is not simply restoring the old centralized model, but building a structure that is harder to destroy and easier to restore.
The core idea is the logic of an energy honeycomb. Each cell has some autonomy, yet remains connected to the larger structure. If one cell is damaged, the whole system should not collapse.
State, regions, communities and business
The first level is the state: basic generation, nuclear power, main transmission networks, dispatching and integration with ENTSO-E. The second level is regional. Regions or energy islands must have their own resilience plans, generation reserves, equipment stocks and scenarios for shortages or partial isolation.
The third level is communities. Municipalities should have enough local autonomy to keep critical infrastructure working, including hospitals, water utilities and schools. The fourth level is business and consumers: industrial parks, residential associations, aggregators and households that can generate, store, balance and return energy to the grid.
The principle is subsidiarity. The state should not centralize tasks that a community can solve faster, and a community should not block solutions that business can implement more efficiently. If this logic works, Ukraine’s energy system becomes less dependent on a few large vulnerable nodes.
