Downward angle icon Downward angle icon. Tesla charging. John Keeble/Getty As rolling blackouts continue, Ukrainians are turning to Teslas to power their homes. Some are reusing old Tesla batteries, while others have gone further. This comes as the country adjusts to rolling blackouts caused by Russia’s targeting of the power grid.
According to a report from the Financial Times, Ukrainians are turning to Tesla to power their homes and limit the impact of Russian attacks on energy infrastructure.
A Ukrainian businessman who reuses Tesla batteries told the Financial Times that he could create up to 12 battery systems from a single Tesla.
“An old Tesla would cost almost $10,000, including shipping, and I could make 12 batteries and sell the parts for it,” said Oleksandr Bentsa, who for years has been buying wrecked Teslas from the United States, fixing them up in Ukraine and reselling them.
The report said a 5-kilowatt-hour (kWh) system his company makes produces enough energy to power the lights and electrical appliances in a standard apartment for 10 hours.
But according to the Financial Times, Benza’s novel idea may have been trumped by that of his father, who connected his entire house to a Tesla parked in his garden.
Benza says the 100kWh battery can power an entire house for a week.
Benza told the outlet he expects sales to surge as winter approaches.
Rolling blackouts in Ukraine are already causing major concern ahead of winter.
The Kyiv Independent reported that Serhiy Kovalenko, CEO of Ukrainian power company Yasno, said in June that local residents could have only six to seven hours of electricity a day during the winter if the shortage reaches 35 percent.
But countries such as Moldova and Poland are exploring ways to boost Ukraine’s electricity supplies, and Poland is considering plans to burn fuel in Poland and send it to Ukraine, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said this month, Bloomberg reported.
“This will at least partially help Ukraine survive the winter,” Tusk said.
The blackout in Ukraine was the result of a Russian attack on Ukraine’s power grid.
Russia stepped up efforts in the spring to disrupt Ukraine’s energy grid, particularly targeting its energy generation infrastructure, in the hope of discouraging it from fighting.
Neil Holland, head of the UK mission to the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), said earlier this month that Russian attacks since the spring had caused a total loss of more than 9GW of electricity.
Russia launched a “large-scale” attack on Ukraine’s power grid in June, which Ukraine’s Energy Ministry said was the eighth major attack on the country’s energy infrastructure since March.
“We need to urgently close the skies, otherwise Ukraine will face a serious crisis this winter,” Maxim Timchenko, CEO of Ukrainian energy company DTEK, told the BBC after the attack. “My request to our allies is that they help us protect our energy system and rebuild it in time.”
Ukrainian officials, including President Volodymyr Zelensky, have also called on allies to strengthen their air defense systems to counter such attacks.
However, Ukraine has also retaliated by targeting Russian energy facilities, particularly Russian oil refineries.
The United States earlier this year urged Ukraine to halt such attacks, fearing they would cause a spike in oil prices and provoke further action from Russia.
But Ukraine has suggested it would not block such an attack, saying the refinery is a legitimate military target.
