A cruise missile attack on the plant in the autumn of 2022 and a ballistic missile attack in 2023 caught Halyna Kuznets, the shift supervisor of the chemical workshop at one of the combined heat and power plants of a “Kyivski TETs” special division within Kyivteploenergo utility, at her workplace. The damage sustained by the combined heat and power plant due to these and other missile attacks was quite significant.
After one of the attacks, the plant was unusually quiet. Halyna is used to the plant’s constant humming when it is in operation. This hum, which accompanies the uninterrupted supply of water and its heating, means that the plant is working and provides hot water and heating to 5 districts of Kyiv (Darnytskyi, Solomianskyi, Pecherskyi, Holosiivskyi, Shevchenkivskyi) and 6 residential areas (Kharkivskyi, Pozniaky, Osokorky, Rusanivka, Berezniaky, Teremky). During the heating season, the capacity of this plant alone is enough to provide heat and light to a city like Lviv. The woman admits that since then, the worst thing for her is when the plant is quiet because she immediately realizes something has happened.
Halyna’s chemical workshop treats water before it is fed into the heating system. Water must undergo a chemical treatment process with industrial salt before being supplied to the heating system. Raw water contains solid salts that crystallize on the surfaces of heating equipment when heated, which reduces service life and increases electricity consumption.
Halyna Kuznets joined the plant as a chemical water treatment operator right after graduating from Kyiv Energy College. During her 44 years of work at the plant, the power engineer has mastered several professions, worked as an operation and maintenance engineer, and successfully passed the exam for a shift supervisor of the chemical workshop.
The plant has three stages of water treatment. Recently, the process of preparing Dnipro water for feeding the heating network and power units has been carried out using new systems. Halyna quickly mastered the new skills: “The new computer system is very convenient to work with; you can immediately see the water level in the tanks, see how much water the plant uses, and how much we supply to the heating network. Everything is automated.”
Kuznets, who oversees all water treatment at the plant, understands the plant’s need for industrial salt for water treatment better than anyone and recalls the difficult April 2022 when Ukraine lost access to Soledar’s salt mines after intense Russian shelling. Instead, Kuznets notes that it was thanks to USAID ESP’s help that a new supply chain for industrial salt for Ukrainian heating companies emerged.
KTE’s annual demand for industrial salt is over 3,000 tons (approximately 50 railroad cars). The USAID Energy Security Project purchased and delivered 2,637 tons of industrial salt (almost a year’s supply) to Kyivteploenergo to treat water and prevent wear and tear on the utility’s heating system equipment.
Halyna loves flowers, so there are always flower beds wherever she is. She also loves to travel. Her philosophy is “Do not sit still; movement is life.”