Although Ukraine has the perfect setting for renewables — vast and windy fields, hillsides and a meandering Dnipro River — the country’s alternative energy sector is still in its infancy.
Industry growth
Only 7.5 percent of the electricity generated in Ukraine comes from green sources, mainly from hydropower, according to Ukraine’s Association of Renewable Energy. Growth could have expanded at a much higher rate if lawmakers had provided a more investor-friendly environment.
The market needs timely legislative decisions, less bureaucracy, rapid energy reforms and more powers for the industry’s regulator, the National Power Industry Commission, head of the association Oleksiy Orzhel told the Kyiv Post.
Investors are still cautious and not confident about government commitments to future tariffs.
Notwithstanding the unpredictability, industry players still express optimism and European banks, especially European Bank of Reconstruction and Development, or EBRD, and World Bank are willing to give loans.
Many new investors have entered Ukraine’s local market to generate electricity from wind, sun, water, and biomass just in the past two years. Here are six market players who are leading the way: Eco Optima Ukraine’s renewable power sector started in 2009, when the country introduced differentiated green tariffs on various types of power generation. The green tariffs are pegged to the euro, setting the price per kilowatt-hour in euro cents. The incentive promised fast return on investment.
Eco Optima
Eco Optima was one of the first companies to take advantage of the profitable tariffs and invested into renewable energy sources in western Ukraine. The company is particularly interested in solar, wind and hydro energy.
Eco Optima has built and launched three solar and two wind power plants. Its biggest power station generates 46 megawatts of wind energy. It is currently developing yet another large-scale power plant in Lviv Oblast with a capacity of 36 megawatts of solar energy.
A power engineer descends the stairs of one of the four wind turbines at the Eco Optima wind farm, located near the western Ukrainian town of Staryi Sambir, on Feb. 21, 2017. (Yuliana Romanyshyn)
UDP Renewables
Investment and development company UDP Renewables has built the biggest solar power plant in Kyiv Oblast as it occupies 12 hectares of land.
It plans to operate the plant at an annual capacity of 50 megawatts by the end of this year and at 300 megawatts by 2020. The company belongs to Ukrainian oligarch Vasyl Khmelnytsky who is also planning to build another two plants — one in Odesa and one in Kherson.
TIU Canada
But Khmelnytsky is not the only one with big plans for the country’s renewables future. Back in September 2017 Canadian renewable energy company TIU-Canada invested 10 million euros in building a 10-megawatt solar power plant in Dnipropetrovsk Oblast.
It’s the first Canadian investor to invest in Ukraine since the Canada-Ukraine Free Trade Agreement came into force in August 2017. And the company plans to continue investing in Ukraine’s renewable energy sector.
TIU-Canada decided to come to Ukraine exactly because of its green tariffs. It already started to generate solar power starting in January.
A drone shots TIU Canada solar plant in Nikopol, about 500 kilometers southeast of Kyiv.
Rengy Development
Established in 2009, Rengy Development invests and builds renewable energy projects in Ukraine, Armenia and Kazakhstan.
The company focuses on solar energy, though it also develops other sources of renewable energy such as wind and biomass.
Today Rengy Development has 10 small solar power plants in Ukraine with a total capacity of approximately 68 megawatts: eight plants in Vinnytsia and two plants in Odesa. Its biggest one generates 9.5 megawatts.
In total, the company has installed 210,000 solar panels stretched throughout 35 kilometers. Its operating plants are estimated to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by more than 60,000 tons a year by replacing the use of fuel.
The company has signed several deals with EBRD, the European Investment Bank, and the Clean Technology Fund.
Rengy Development five-megawatts solar plant in Vinnytsia Oblast, about 250 kilometers southwest of Kyiv. (rengydevelopment.com)
Recom
The second largest solar panel manufacturing company in Europe, German company Recom, came to Ukraine in 2017 to become a part of a Ukrainian government initiative to reduce pollution and fossil fuels consumption.
They started in Odesa, but now plan to move their attention to southern Ukraine’s Kherson Oblast. The officials there are glad to receive some help as they are ambitiously trying to increase their quota renewable-based electricity. For this purpose, Recom is to invest $500 million in a solar power plant that will have the capacity of up to 500 megawatts.
Meanwhile, Recom has already built three power plans in Odesa Oblast that altogether generate 24 megawatts.
Recom has a solid international presence with plants in Israel, Romania, the United Kingdom, the United States, Germany, and Hungary among others. Its Odesa solar plant already became the company’s second largest.
Rener
One more renewables champion in Ukraine is Rener, a leader in the renewable industry in western Ukraine, where it has launched eight solar plants with a total capacity of 42 megawatts: three solar power plants and five mini-hydropower plants.
By the end of 2018, the company will have built two more hydropower plants. The Rener group also owns the largest solar power plant in Zakarpattya Oblast, with a capacity of 21 megawatts.
One of Rener mini-hydropower plants in Zakarpattya Oblast. (uare.com.ua)
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