Ukraine after the war will be very interesting for private investors to develop renewable energy sources, said Harry Boyd Carpenter, managing director for climate strategy and implementation of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.
“There’s also going to be a huge wave of investment in renewable energy. Ukraine does have a success story because before the war there was an extraordinary boom in RE – 5 GW of privately financed renewable energy. And that’s the template for Ukraine in the future,” Carpenter said during a discussion on Ukraine’s transition from coal to clean energy ahead of the London Recovery Conference (URC2023), scheduled for June 21-22.
At the same time, according to him, Ukraine will also receive public sector money, but it should be spent primarily on the development of nuclear energy, as well as on construction and reconstruction of networks, to ensure, among other things, the work of decentralized system of renewable energy.
At the same time, the top manager of the EBRD called the commitment of Ukraine to abandon coal in power generation extremely important, noting that this course determines the further development of not only energy, but also the economy and the whole country.
He noted that the contours of the energy sector of Ukraine in the future are quite clear – it will be built on nuclear and renewable energy, and the country has huge resources in all these areas.
At the same time, Carpenter noted that RES used to develop under conditions of “imperfect market and tariffs”, calling it a difficult transition period, but expressed his belief that in the future their development will be based on three fundamental pillars that will remove these problems.
“The first will be a commitment to a green future (…). The second is market reforms. We need a well-functioning, transparent, clearly delineated market. And the third will be integration with the European energy system, which is already in full swing,” the EBRD top manager pointed out.
Besides, Carpenter assured that EBRD intends to continue to support Ukraine financially.
“We will provide Ukraine with EUR3 billion of support. And we are already halfway there. Much of this has come in the form of liquidity support for the energy sector – Naftogaz and Ukrenergo,” the banker emphasized.
Announcing URC2023 on June, 19 First vice-premier Yulia Sviridenko announced the goals in 10 years to show the new Ukraine and to reach over 100 GW of new green power generation capacity, to produce 40 million tons of “green” steel and to bring GDP to $1 trillion per year from $161 billion in 2022.
As reported, at the end of December 2022, NEC Ukrenergo, inter alia, attracted EUR300 million of credit funds from the EBRD to purchase equipment to restore substations subjected to massive Russian missile strikes, as well as to replenish working capital.
NJSC Naftogaz attracted a EUR300 million loan from the EBRD at the end of last year, and later, in early 2023, it received a grant of nearly EUR200 million for the purchase of gas.
According to the president of the bank, Odile Renaud-Basso, the EBRD in 2022 increased the amount of investment in projects in Ukraine to EUR1.7 billion compared to approximately EUR1 billion that it invested annually before. It plans to invest EUR3bn in Ukraine during 2022-2023.
