Ukraine’s booming renewables market largely focuses on solar and wind energy. But every rule has its exceptions.
On July 16, Ukraine’s largest state-owned hydro-generating company, Ukrhydroenergo, launched a new 46.8-megawatt turbine at its pumped-storage power station in Vyshgorod, a city of around 29,000 people located 2.5 kilometers north of Kyiv.
The new, more powerful turbine replaces an earlier turbine that has operated for 40 years at the power station.
“This new turbine will serve for the next 40 years,” said Ihor Syrota, general director at Ukrhydroenergo, which provides around 7 percent of the total electricity in Ukraine.
In the next two years, the power station will install another two turbines. The end goal is to prevent power outages by ensuring stable electricity supply to Kyiv and the surrounding areas — especially necessary during the morning and evening when electricity usage peaks.
The turbines are part of a broader rehabilitation project for Ukrhydroenergo. It also includes 18 other turbines to be installed along Ukraine’s rivers. The project is funded by the European Investment Bank (EIB) and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), which provided a 20-year loan of 400 million euros.
“It is very important to move towards renewable energy and going away from fossil energy. This kind of projects and this company (Ukrhydroenergo) is really moving in the right direction for that,” said Jean-Erik de Zagon, head of the European Investment Bank’s representation office in Ukraine.
Moreover, according to Zagon, the company’s project can help reduce carbon dioxide emissions in Ukraine nearly by 380 kilotons per year, a very significant amount.
The rehabilitation project is hardly new. It has been ongoing since 1996 and was divided into three stages. Since the plan’s launch, 71 out of just over 100 turbines have already been replaced. The rest will be “rehabilitated” by 2026.
Although the EIB has around 40 projects in Ukraine worth a total of 6 billion euro, Zagon says that the rehabilitation plan is one of the most important.
“With this project, Ukraine comes closer to the European Union because you are going to build at the end of the day what we target here – synchronization with the EU electric system,” he said.
Fueling domestic market
In 2016, Ukrhydroenergo launched a tender to produce turbines using Ukraine’s ProZorro e-procurement system. Two companies won.
Turboatom — Ukraine’s largest state-owned turbine equipment producer for hydro, thermal and nuclear power plants — will produce 18 turbines, including the Vyshgorod ones. Austrian company Andritz Hydro, a subsidiary of the Andritz technology group, will make the other three.
In Vyshgorod, the turbine made by Turboatom even has an 11-percent higher (or 5.3 megawatt) capacity than demanded by the tender.
“This is a serious job for our factories, a three-year opportunity with thousands of people working there,” said Victor Subotin, general director of Turboatom.
According to Syrota, this massive turbine production project involves 12,000 workers in Ukraine, which will help the national economy to develop faster.
“This is not only energy security but also the movement of the economy because it brings funds that are invested in Ukrainian workers,” said Syrota.
