The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) together with Black Sea Trade and Development Bank (BSTDB) are jointly financing a 57.6-megawatt solar power plant in Ukraine’s southern Mykolaiv Oblast, both international financial institutions reported on Feb. 14.
Each bank will provide a 19.1-million-euro loan to Ingulets-Energo 2, the company that will build the solar plant. This is the largest investment into a solar power plant project for both banks.
The financing is part of EBRD’s recently approved new lending program totaling 250 million euros to support and finance renewables in Ukraine, one of the fastest growing sectors in the country due to favorable green tariffs.
The project will be launched in 2020, according to Anton Usov, EBRD’s spokesperson.
This is already the second project between the two financial institutions. In late 2018 they each financed 18 million euros to Dutch company Rengy Solar B.V. to build three solar power plants in Ukraine.
However, the current solar project will be EBRD’s last one in Ukraine until the July auctions and all the green tariff legislative nuances will be clearly understandable.
“We are not even accepting applications for new solar projects now,” Usov told the Kyiv Post.
EBRD’s head Matteo Patrone told the Kyiv Post on Feb. 13 that the high feed-in solar power tariffs offered by the government are unsustainable.
After the Mykolaiv Oblast project will be launched, it will reduce approximately 40,000 tons of carbon dioxide emissions per year, EBRD says.
Altogether, the EBRD financed 418 projects and invested 13 billion euros in Ukraine since 1993.
BSTDB has financed 5 billion euros into 365 projects throughout 11 countries, including Ukraine.
Third largest player
EBRD is confident that Ingulets-Energo 2 will properly execute the project and finish it on time.
“We know that the developer is well-known and reliable, and fulfills all our requirements,” Usov said.
Ingulets-Energo 2’s sole beneficiary is Sergiy Khripkov, according to the State Register of Legal Entities.
Solar business is not something new for Khripkov. In fact, he is the third largest player on the Ukrainian market after Chinese corporation CNBM New Energy Engineering and Ukraine’s richest person Rinat Akhmetov.
Khripkov has eight solar power plants with the total capacity of 92.9 megawatts in Vinnytsia, Kherson and Kirovograd Oblasts, according to ProElectro.info, an online industry portal.
Khripkov also used to co-own Kyiv’s Karavan mall.
