Vitaliy Shramko never though that making solar panels would become his passion. He had always been interested in renewable energy sources, but over the last three years Shramko has been working to educate others about alternative heating energy sources.
A
native of Kopyllia village in western Ukraine, Shramko recalls finding a
leaflet at home explaining how to make a solar collector. Later he learned that
a local youth group, Ecoclub, taught people how to use solar energy for heating
water and homes.
“I
contacted them and participated in a few workshops,” Shramko said.
Over
time he learned how to build a solar collector for his home. Three years
on, he has built solar collectors for his parents and godfather, and also
helped to install a collector at school building in a Volyn Oblast town of 6,500 residents.
“It
was interesting for me, because I enjoy making different things myself,” Shramko
says. Eventually, he became an Ecoclub coach.
Ecoclub,
which is based in the western Ukrainian city of Rivne, together with its
partners – National Ecological Center of Ukraine, and Vidrodzhennia
(Renaissance) ecological organization – started the four-year Switch to the Sun
project in 2011.
Funded
by the European Union, the teams have since spread to Ukraine’s southern and
western regions and share practical tips on energy conservation with local
activists.
Ukraine
wants to become energy independent, thereby alleviating Russia’s influence on
the country. The project coordinators hope solar heating can contribute to
this.
They
focused on educating local communities and distributing materials on how to
build solar collectors step-by-step. The teams also bring international experts
to monitor their construction.
Three
years later, regional project coordinator Oksana Maiboroda says the initiative
has yielded results.
At
least 60 collectors have been installed in Ukraine during the last three years
of the project. Besides Ukraine, the project includes Georgia, Moldova,
Armenia, Azerbaijan and Russia. In Georgia, for instance, some 212 have been
constructed since 2011.
Thanks
to solar heating techniques, residents of villages and small towns can have hot
water round-the-clock. Sun shines through a panel that heats a water tank by up
to 80 degrees Celsius in summer. Even during the winter, the high temperature
is kept up to three days. The collector itself has two square meters and
can heat up to nearly 200 liters of water per day.
Shramko
said people were initially skeptical when he decided to make his first solar
collector.
“Some
of them laughed at me,” he says.
However,
some of his neighbors later followed suit. It took him Hr 1,800 ($85) to make and install the collector in 2011. Today
it costs around Hr 6,000-7,000 ($280-330). Prices for the same ready-to-use
collectors start at Hr 14,000 ($670). It will take some four years to recover
the money, according to the project coordinators.
“The
main thing is to show people how to do it – then they can construct it
themselves and reduce their bills. It’s very easy to make a collector once the
trainers show you,” Shramko, who has built more than a dozen collectors, says.
Shramko
said when he installed the collector his gas bills dropped by 30 percent
because households usually heat buildings with gas. Even though the collector doesn’t
help to lower bills drastically, it’s helpful in the long run because of price hikes,
Shramko says.
The
initiative sparked interest not only among households, but also drew the attention
of some local penitentiary facilities in Rivne and Volyn oblasts, Maiboroda says.
Their management asked the team to conduct workshops and helped them construct
solar panels.
Maksym
Babaev, an ecologist and a member of National Ecological Center of Ukraine, says
households aren’t the only ones who benefit from such knowledge. A number of
higher educational institutes have also reached out to the
coordinators. One of those is the Zhytomyr City Construction College,
located some 150 kilometers outside Kyiv, where students now have hot water in
their workshops at least 7-8 months per year.
“The
students often work with clay there, so it was important for them to have hot
water to increase production,” Babaev says.
Kyiv Post staff writer Olena Goncharova
can be reached at [email protected].
