NPC Ukrenergo, the Ministry of Environmental Protection and Natural Resources of Ukraine, the State Agency of Ukraine on Exclusion Zone Management and the German company NOTUS energy Invest Ukraine GmbH have signed a Memorandum of Cooperation in the development of renewable energy projects in the 30-kilometer zone of the Chornobyl NPP.
As Ukrenergo reported on its Telegram channel, the document refers to stable and secure electricity supply from the exclusion zone using existing infrastructure and networks.
“One of the key results of cooperation should be the creation of additional renewable energy facilities. This will increase the reliability of power supply to the surrounding settlements and increase the share of renewable energy in the Ukrainian power system,” the company said.
In addition, within the framework of cooperation, Ukrenergo will forecast the development of generating capacities and develop the transmission system to ensure the grid capacity in accordance with market needs.
The company reminded that this is not the first cooperation between Ukrenergo and German partners. In particular, more than EUR 30 million of loans from the KfW have been attracted for the implementation of projects to restore and reconstruct substations. Also, German transmission system operators constantly help the NPC with the replacement of equipment damaged by shelling.
Construction of one more solar power plant with a capacity of 762 kW on the territory of the Chornobyl exclusion zone will be started in July 2019 and completed in December, the Ecology and Natural Resources Ministry has told Interfax-Ukraine. The project is financed by the Government of Spain. According to Svitlana Hrynchuk, Director of the Department for Climate Change and the Ozone Globe of the Ecology and Natural Resources Ministry, the solar power plant in Chornobyl is being built under a program of targeted environmental (“green”) investments that Ukraine received from Spain, transferring its emission quotas for greenhouse gases.
According to the ministry, at the end of 2018, a joint Ukrainian-Spanish committee, which controls the efficiency and feasibility of using the Kyoto funds provided by the Spanish government, approved the respective project to reconstruct the asphalt concrete pavement on the territory of the Chornobyl sports stadium by installing the solar power plant. The project was developed by state-owned enterprise Center for Organizational, Technical and Information Support of the Exclusion Zone Management.
The ministry also said that at the end of March, the Ukrainian-Spanish delegation, which included Ambassador of Spain to Ukraine Silvia Josefina Cortes Martin, as well as representatives of Ukrainian ministries and departments, inspected the territory where the plant will be installed.
Cooperation with the Spanish government was resumed in 2016 after an almost 10-year break, the ministry recalled. About 10 years ago, the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food of Spain bought the so-called Assigned Amount Units from Ukraine for EUR 30 million.
Currently, a solar power plant with a capacity of 1 MW is operating in the Chornobyl zone. The plant was built by Ukrainian-German consortium Rodina-Enerparc AG in 2018. The consortium plans to expand the plant’s capacity to 100 MW.
