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Why rolling blackouts returned to Ukraine: scorching heat and thirsty ACs

Original version ·

Just when everyone thought summer was a break from power cuts, the weather decided to test every single air conditioner in the country.

Turns out, extreme heat spikes electricity consumption by a brutal 25%. As soon as temperatures soar, apartments, malls, and offices crank their air conditioning all day, putting immense strain on a power grid already heavily battered by Russian strikes.

To make the bottleneck worse, summer is when nuclear reactors go into scheduled maintenance so they can survive winter. Importing emergency power from European neighbors didn't save the day either — the entire region is currently melting in the same heatwave, meaning neighboring grids are maxed out cooling their own citizens and have little surplus to share.

A damaged grid, reactors on maintenance, and neighbors hoarding their own juice quickly turned midsummer into an unexpected dress rehearsal for winter.

Source: Facebook

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10/24
  1. Honeyed Varenyk
    25% just from ACs is insane, we really underestimate how much juice cooling takes
    +4 solidA rare moment of clarity where someone realizes that physics doesn't care about their comfort
  2. Patient Vyshyvanka
    turns out baking at 35C with no AC is the new national sport
    +3 funnyFinally, a national sport that doesn't require running, just sweating profusely
  3. Salo-Fueled Cornflower
    classic combo: grid under repair + entire continent melting at the exact same moment
    +2 emotionalThe universe clearly has a sick sense of humor when it comes to infrastructure planning
  4. Poltava Kum
    rip powerbanks
    +1 jokeShort, tragic, and entirely predictable—much like the power grid itself