Victoria Hubareva
Russia’s war in Ukraine has destroyed US$16 billion of the country’s energy infrastructure. Restoring the country’s energy industry to its previous form is a longer, more difficult and more expensive prospect than building new generating capacities based on renewable energy.
Energy sector losses since the start of the full-scale invasion and the government’s chosen strategy
According to estimates by an analytical team at the Kyiv School of Economics, as of May 2024 direct losses in Ukraine’s energy sector alone amount to over US$16.1 billion. The greatest damage resulted from the destruction of electricity generation facilities ($8.5 billion), primary power lines ($2.1 billion), and oil and gas infrastructure ($3.3 billion).
In considering these factors, Ukraine began preparing for the 2024 heating season in the spring and chose a general course towards decentralization of the energy sector, in order to avoid concentrating significant generation capacity in a single location and thus ensuring energy security in the country. In addition, rebuilding large power plants is more time-consuming, difficult and expensive than smaller generating capacities. At least, this is Ukrenergo’s assessment.
For this reason, instead of building new large facilities, energy sector managers are concentrating on purchasing gas peaking power plants (small, highly maneuverable gas power plants), biogas thermal power plants, and electrical energy storage systems for renewable energy plants.
A state-owned electricity transmission system operator in Ukraine, Ukrenergo’s restoration plan is ambitious. The company is creating a model future energy system on the basis of renewable energy. The goal is to increase wind generation capacity fivefold, biofuel thermal power plants fourfold, increase solar generation by 60%, and build 0.8 GW of energy storage systems from scratch in two to three years.
On August 13, 2024, Ukraine’s government approved the National Action Plan for Renewable Energy through 2030 (hereinafter referred to as the National Plan). The plan sets a national goal for achieving 24 GW of renewable energy generation capacity and a 27% share of renewable energy in gross final energy consumption. Facilities to generate 6.1 GW of onshore wind energy, 12.2 GW of solar energy, 876 MW of bioenergy, 40 MW of geothermal energy, and 4.7 GW of hydropower must be built in order to achieve these goals.
Read more: Distributed electricity generation in Ukraine: the risks and opportunities
Is the National Plan achievable given the reality of wartime?
Losses for renewable energy producers are estimated at $282 million (excluding damage to large hydroelectric and pumped storage power plants). According to an analysis by the Energy Charter Secretariat, 13% of solar power capacity is located in temporarily occupied territories, and 8% of that amount has been damaged or destroyed. Approximately 80% of wind power capacity remains in occupied territory, and some was damaged by shelling. In addition, at least four biogas plants are known to have been destroyed as a result of Russian aggression. Even in the best case scenario—deoccupation of all Ukrainian territories—it is very likely that most power generation facilities built before the war will have been destroyed, damaged or looted.
And although information is being disseminated that the share of renewable energy in Ukraine’s energy balance has grown to 9.8% in the first six months of 2024 alone, unfortunately, the main reason for this growth is not renewable energy, but rather the Russian army’s destruction of 73% of the country’s thermal power generation. In other words, electricity generation in the country has fallen overall.
Ukraine has lost at least 1 GW of “green energy” generation since 2022. At the beginning of the full-scale invasion, installed renewable energy capacity in Ukraine totalled 9.9 GW, of which 2 GW was wind energy, 6 GW solar energy, and 0.2 GW bioenergy. At the start of 2024, renewable energy generation totalled 8.7 GW—new renewable energy capacity is coming online in Ukraine despite two years of war.
However, in order to achieve the goals set out in the National Plan, Ukraine will need to build three times more capacity over a six-year period than it currently has today. The most interesting aspect is that this is theoretically possible, from the perspective of land being available to site new generation capacity.
According to preliminary research by Greenpeace Ukraine, Ukraine can achieve production of 91% of its energy from renewable energy sources using just one percent of the land area needed for construction of solar and wind power plants.
For example, a study in the city of Kremenchuk showed that installing solar panels on school roofs can meet the entire city’s energy demand. The most proximate forecasts for commissioning of wind power plants (WPP) also give cause for hope: at present, Ukraine is preparing to build 4 GW of WPP generation capacity that can be commissioned in one to two years. And Ukraine’s National Plan, as mentioned above, requires 6.1 GW of wind energy over the next six years.
However, the main issues in Ukraine are not the availability of renewable energy plants alone, or even the lack of those willing to install them. According to renewable energy sector experts, the leading obstacle is inadequate legislation and lacking investor confidence in the Ukrainian regulatory system for the renewable energy market.
According to European-Ukrainian Energy Agency CEO Anastasia Vereshinskaya, to overcome these obstacles, Ukraine must first pay off its electricity market debts, create security funds to offset cover risks (including military), and implement regulations to meet European regulatory standards.
What examples of energy independence can Ukraine boast of today?
An “ideal” version of Ukraine’s energy independence specifically during power outages is the ability of enterprises, households, co-owned multi-unit apartment buildings and municipal buildings to meet their needs for heat and electricity independently, using renewable energy sources. And such examples already exist.
Municipal projects are being implemented in Ukraine, including schools, outpatient clinics, hospitals and kindergartens that can now fully or partially meet their needs using renewable sources. For example, an outpatient clinic in Horenka, destroyed during the Russian offensive near Kyiv, has been meeting half of its own needs for almost two years thanks to renewable energy sources.
In partnership with other organizations, Greenpeace Ukraine installed both a heat pump in the clinic that, in its first year of operations, generated 43% in savings on heating and a solar power array that met 55% of the outpatient clinic’s demand for electricity. In other words, the building can run on 100% solar power 150 days per year!
A similar example can be found in Kryvyi Rih—there, 40 kW of solar panels were installed on the roof of a kindergarten, an array that can provide budgetary savings of up to 40% of estimated electricity costs. Five comparable projects have already been implemented in the city, and seven more are in the works. Similar projects are being implemented in Mykolaiv, Bukovina, and Volyn, in Lviv and Poltava regions, and in other regions of Ukraine. Most of them are financed by the EU.
Moreover, it is not just municipal facilities that are becoming energy independent. For example, a logistics center in the Vinnytsia region was equipped with solar panels and energy storage units. The business is not just saving on energy – it completely meets its needs using renewable energy. One of Ukraine’s largest agricultural holdings, MHP, is currently building two biogas methane plants in order to export biomethane to the EU in the future.
All of these examples suggest that, despite existing barriers and risks associated with the war, both foreign partners and Ukrainian enterprises directly interested in cost savings and developing energy-efficient decentralized generation systems are betting on the effectiveness of renewable energy as a means of supporting Ukraine.
Translated by Jennifer Castner
Main image source: hromadske
