Business news from Ukraine

In Ukraine demand for autonomous solar power plants up 10 times among public amid power outages

9 November , 2022  

In Ukraine, due to problems with energy supply caused by shelling of energy facilities and infrastructure, a significant increase in demand for autonomous solar stations, both domestic and industrial, is recorded, Artem Semenyshyn, executive director of the Solar Energy Association of Ukraine, said.
“According to the results of our analysis based on data from the main suppliers and distributors of equipment, for domestic SPPs, demand for autonomous stations increased approximately 10 times, for industrial ones – 4-5 times,” he said, answering questions from a journalist from the Energy Reform Internet portal during a thematic online seminar in Kyiv on Wednesday.
At the same time, he noted that traditionally demand for grid inverters, which make it possible to supply electricity to the grid at a feed-in tariff, significantly prevailed over the demand for autonomous ones, providing personal power consumption.
At the same time, according to him, due to a sharp increase in demand in Ukraine, there is a shortage of the necessary equipment.
“There is not even enough equipment available. Here we compete for consignments of equipment with Europe, where the demand for solar power plants is also growing,” Semenyshyn said, expressing the hope that the situation with such equipment will improve in the coming months.
At the same time, he drew attention to the need to stimulate the development of small solar generation for personal consumption, given the situation with energy supply in the country.
At the same time, he pointed out that an autonomous solar power plant of the appropriate capacity has several advantages over diesel generators.
“For example, a battery has a response time of milliseconds, while a generator needs 1-3 seconds. In the case of a hospital, in particular, the switching speed is important in order to maintain certain settings of medical equipment. In addition, large generators consume a huge amount of expensive fuel, and the solar power plant battery can also be charged from the grid when there is electricity,” Semenyshyn explained.

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