From Emergency Response to Managed Autonomy: Kostiantyn Butenko shared ELAKS PrJSC experience in ensuring community energy security

25.02.2026

On February 18, 2026, during the Energy Club online meeting “Technologies and Solutions for Community Energy Security,” Kostiantyn Butenko, Chief Engineer of the engineering company ELAKS PrJSC, delivered a speech. In his report, he focused exclusively on practical automation solutions for critical infrastructure that allow communities to operate stably even under unstable power supply conditions.

Below are the key highlights and solutions presented during the speech.

1. Community Autonomy is Not Isolation, but Manageability

The speaker emphasized that for critical infrastructure objects (particularly water supply), autonomy means the ability to operate independently of external risks — accidents, outages, or grid overloads. The main goal of autonomy is to give the community manageability, which, in turn, guarantees predictability and stability for people, while also reducing the financial burden on the local budget.

Based on ELAKS PrJSC’s experience, real autonomy is built on three components:

• Comprehensive automation and dispatching.
• Backup and autonomous power supply.
• Energy-efficient control algorithms to reduce consumption and optimize costs.

2. Transition from “Emergency Mode” to a Proactive Management System

Kostiantyn Butenko noted that many communities still operate in reactive mode: responding to accidents, facing unpredictable shutdowns, water hammers, and requiring constant manual intervention. The company proposes changing this approach to a managed mode that includes monitoring, analytics, remote control, and forecasting. The system should work not after an accident has occurred, but in anticipation of the problem.

3. Technological Solutions for Stability and Savings

For stable infrastructure operation (pumping and sewage stations, etc.), ELAKS PrJSC implements:

• Frequency control of pumps, which allows for reducing water hammers, lowering inrush currents, cutting energy consumption, and generally decreasing the accident rate.
• Redundancy of control and power supply systems.
• Duplication of controllers for critical infrastructure nodes.

4. Practical Experience and Implemented Cases During the War

All of the company’s solutions are implemented taking into account modern Ukrainian realities. Among the strategically important objects the team worked on are:

• The first main water pipeline “Khortytsia” (Makiivka–Marhanets): a critically important object for restoring the region’s water supply after infrastructure destruction.
• The second main water pipeline to the city of Mykolaiv: implementation of automation systems for pumping stations, dispatching, and power distribution.
• Heat supply objects (including Kharkiv Heating Networks): modernization of central heating points, boiler houses, pumping stations, and auxiliary equipment.

Reference: ELAKS PrJSC is an engineering company with over 30 years of experience in comprehensive automation. Its portfolio includes more than 1,000 implemented projects, over 200 of which are critical infrastructure objects.