Investment opportunities of the renewable energy in Ukraine: Ukrainian Energy Week’18

Sergiy Savchuk, Chairman of the State Agency of Energy Efficiency and Energy Saving of Ukraine, opened the panel discussion on “Investment Opportunities for Renewable Energy in Ukraine”. According to him, renewable energy in Ukraine is currently in the stage of dynamic development, and this trend will continue in the future. Public institutions, with the support of international financial institutions and Ukrainian banks, are already actively working on drafting new laws which will attract new investors.

It should be noted that the next step in the development of the sector will be the involvement of investors interested in the production of energy from garbage. Mr. Savchuk mentioned that today approximately 10 million tons of garbage are accumulating in Ukraine annually, and the Agency already took responsibility to develop new technologies for its processing.

Marina Petrov, Deputy Head of Infrastructure and Energy of EBRD in Ukraine, has a similar opinion: “We can talk for a long time about what expects us in the future, but in reality there is no alternative to for the renewable energy investments”. According to the speaker, today introduction of auctions is the first priority for the more efficient investments attraction. The main idea of the auctions is to ensure transparent competition, as well as to establish a real market price for electricity from renewable sources. The system of auctions exists for many years all over the world and allows to guarantee the purchase of electricity for at least the next 15-20 years.

Speakers also discussed ways to support the development of both renewable and traditional sources for the balanced development of both directions. According to Oleksii Khabatiuk, Deputy Head of Energy Efficiency Department, Naftogaz of Ukraine, renewable energy production in the future will indeed outperform the traditional, but maintaining the balance between the two sectors is very important. “Over time, the cost of alternative energy will certainly decrease, but the transition period has to be filled with something,” he said.

Max Lebedev, Partner and Attorney at Lawyer at GOLAW, told about the main problems facing investors in the implementation of renewable energy projects: “The constant change in legal regulation does not allow investors to plan long-term green energy projects, and for the same reason lawyers cannot provide rational consultations. Obviously, this situation creates many problems that need to be addressed now”.

According to the speaker, investors and project developers should optimise project costs and time for its development and implementation to the max. In this way manufacturers will be able to offer a competitive price and win an auction.

Rodion Morozov, Head of Ecological Projects Department, Ukrgasbank, has completed the session. The speaker emphasised that the key to the investment attractiveness of Ukraine’s energy sector depends largely on the well-developed state policy. Moreover, the political stability by itself in the country is highly important as well, which should be taken into consideration on the eve of 2019 elections.

We thank all speakers for the interesting discussion and A7CONFERENCES for organising this event.
See you next time!