During the Green Dialogue, organized by the European-Ukrainian Energy Agency on February 4, 2022, the participants exchanged views on the prospects for the development of the renewable energy sector in Ukraine.
Among the speakers were:
- Oleksandra Gumeniuk, EUEA Director;
- Yuri Kubrushko, EUEA Board Member, Managing Partner of IMEPOWER;
- Alina Sviderska, EUEA Board Member, General Manager of Scatec Ukraine;
- Magnus Johansen, Vice President of EMERGY.
The full video can be viewed by the link: https://cutt.ly/VOMcUr6
Oleksandra Gumeniuk, Director of EUEA, a business association of the largest foreign investors in the RES sector who have invested more than € 3.5 billion in the sector, noted the importance of the international aspect, as EUEA estimates that about 30% of RES’s installed capacity in Ukraine built by foreign investors from around the world. As of the beginning of 2022, the total installed capacity of RES is 9.6 GW, including home solar power plants, which are already about 1.2 GW. In 2021, 714.3 MW of new capacity of industrial RES facilities was added.
A detailed overview in the presentation and video: https://cutt.ly/VOMcUr6 [01:00 – 08:30]
In his speech, Yuri Kubrushko made a general overview of the status of settlements with market participants, the need to revise the transmission tariff, expressed his views on the prospects of waiting for auctions, as well as tools that will give the green light to further development of renewable energy sources after 2022.
In particular, regarding the settlements, Yuri noted that the problem of blocked payments to green energy producers in 2021 currently remains due to unsigned acts between Ukrenergo and the Guaranteed Buyer, although funds in the accounts must be available to pay off a significant part of the debt in 2021. Regarding the need to revise the tariff for the electricity transmission service, it is important that the NEURC does in the first quarter so that the new tariff enters into force on April 1, 2022. Moreover, this is an obligation under the IMF (International Monetary Fund) Memorandum signed by the President of Ukraine in November 2021.
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Alina Sviderska shared her experience of Scatec in Ukraine and around the world, their experience of social projects and plans for the coming years. Scatec came to Ukraine in 2017, as of now Scatec has built 336 MW of solar power plants in Kyiv, Mykolaiv and Cherkasy regions, which provides electricity to 53,000 households. Globally, Scatec is present in 23 countries around the world, not only in the field of solar energy but also in hydro, bio – and energy storage. One of the most important of our achievements is a long-term cooperation with local communities for 20-25 years. This is constant work with communities, in order to establish cooperation and help communities for their sustainable development and solving current problems. These include education, leadership, medicine and infrastructure. For example, for the whole time, Scatec spent UAH 22.3 million on social projects in communities in Ukraine, where stations were built, about UAH 10 million, of which was spent on road repairs. Another part of social projects is education, such as robotics courses for young people. In general, we aim to create a network of robotics clubs throughout Ukraine that Scatec will be able to support financially as well as informationally. Scatec also supports English language courses, which are free for children and adults, develops leadership skills among women, and promotes the development of girls in the fields of technical sciences. “We are very pleased with this cooperation, and much more lies ahead. Every year we allocate a budget for social projects, which we discuss in advance with the communities so that it is relevant for them, ” said Alina Sviderska.
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Magnus Johansen in his speech shared about Emergy as an investor in wind energy, which has two major projects in Ukraine in its portfolio. Emergy has built a 250 MW Syvash WPP located in the Kherson region. This is one of the largest wind farm projects in Ukraine, which was developed and built-in close cooperation with local authorities, the main principle of which is sustainability and ESG. Emergy’s second project is the Zophia WPP with a total capacity of about 800 MW, located in the Zaporizhia region. The wind farm will save about 1 million tons of CO2 emissions per year, which is equal to one-tenth of the annual emissions of the capital of Ukraine – Kyiv.
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In general, participants of the Green Dialogue agreed that investors expect the government to be more predictable for the longer horizon of planning future investments in renewable energy sources.
