Page 77 - UKRRptFeb21

reported on Jan. 14. The current CEO of DTEK Energy, Dmytro Sakharuk, has been appointed as executive director of the company's parent holding DTEK Group. “The new DTEK Energy CEO is faced with a tough challenge: preparing thermal power plants for the switch to a new operation mode within the Ukrainian energy system, being an active participant in the ancillary services market, and finding growth points by testing new technologies,” the group’s CEO Maxim Timchenko commented.
DTEK Kyiv Grids, formerly known as Kyivoblenergo, plans to invest $23mn in 2021 to upgrade the capital’s electricity infrastructure, ​the company reports. The investment – a 35% increase over the level of recent years – will go for reconstructing substations, replacing overhead lines, as well as developing a system of ‘smart grids’ and introducing modern customer service featuring an online portal and chatbots.
9.1.10 ​Renewables corporate news
Qatar’s state-owned power development company, Nebras, is buying control of 214 MW of Ukraine solar and wind plants from Vasyl Khmelnytsky ​and his partners, according to a filing with Ukraine’s Antimonopoly Committee. The sale of these eight operating plants follows the 2019 sale by Khmelnytsky’s UDP Renewables of three solar plants to a Polish unit of Spain’s Acciona Energia Global.
DTEK Energy plans to launch solar and wind projects in the EU ​as early as this year, DTEK Renewables CEO Maris Kunickis tells Bloomberg in an article headlined: “DTEK Looks Abroad After Ukraine Backtracks on Green Support.” Behind DTEK’s drive to diversify, Bloomberg writes: “In 2020, government only paid for 50% of produced energy to renewable producers. The retroactive cut jeopardizes Ukraine’s goal of having a 25% share of renewables in electricity production in 2035.”
Ukraine’s two largest renewable investors – DTEK and NBT -- plan to make their next investments outside of Ukraine. ​TIU Canada, once one of the biggest foreign cheerleaders for investing in Ukraine, is suing Ihor Kolomoisky for pulling the plug on its solar plant. Wind and solar -- Ukraine’s top bricks and mortar investment story of 2017-2019 – is over. Outside of Ukraine, Bloomberg reports that investors last year spent $291bn last year to build 205 GW of wind and solar worldwide.
With the payment delays and lowered rates, executives of the biggest US wind investment, EuroCape Energy, are talking to lawyers specialized in political risk insurance​, two other foreign investors in wind energy tell the UBN. In 2019, the US Overseas Private Investment Corporation, now called the International Development Finance Corporation, provided a $150mn loan for the first phase of what was to be a 500 mw Zaporizhia Wind Farm. With 100 mw commissioned, the lowered rates undermine the project’s profitability. Invoking the political risk insurance clause would probably freeze new DFC lending to Ukraine.
77​ UKRAINE Country Report​ February 2021 ​ ​www.intellinews.com