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biogas and hydropower installed capacity, Belarus imports about 82% of its energy from Russia, according to the IAEA.
While Belarus is connected to the Soviet- era “IPS/UPS” regional power sharing system, it is largely reliant on its own generators for its own power.
The total electricity generation of 29.92bn billion kWh from its 22 gas fired plants met 90% of domestic demand in 2007, the last data available from the IAEA, with another 9.406bn kWh imported mostly from Russia and 5.062bn kWh exported.
However, Belarus is a major transit route for Russian energy on its way to Rus- sian customers in western Europe and Russia plays a big role in the Belarusian economy. Traditionally most of Russia’s gas travels through Ukraine’s Druzhba (Brotherhood) pipeline on its way to the west. Russia has already built a new northern route called Nord Stream and controversially is in the midst of expand- ing this pipeline, doubling its capacity. At the same time a southern route through Turkey, the so-called Turk Stream pipeline, is also under construction. But less well known is the Belarusian transit pipeline; Belarus exports 99% of the gas entering the country and earns hand- some transit fees from Russia in return.
In addition, it has two of the most mod- ern oil refineries in the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) that were built shortly before the collapse of the Soviet Union. Russian companies send significant amounts of crude to these refineries and Belarus then re-exports 90% of the production to customers in the west, again to make a tidy profit.
The Kremlin uses the price it charges for gas and the duties it charges in oil opera- tions to bind Minsk to Moscow. The two sides are constantly bickering over these prices, but at the end of the day Moscow heavily subsidises the Belarusian econ- omy by keeping them low compared to prices in the rest of the region.
When the Astravets nuclear plant comes online, the amount of gas Belarus needs
Ukraine launches solar power plant next to Chernobyl as renewables take off
bne IntelliNews
Ukraine has installed a 1MW solar power plant in the contaminated area adjacent to the decommissioned nuclear power station in Chernobyl, as Ukrainian investment into renewable energy takes off.
The photovoltaic facility is comprised of 3,800 panels and is expected to pro- duce enough energy to meet the power demand of 2,000 local apartments.
It benefits from feed-in-tariffs (FiTs) that guarantee a certain price for power, Reuters reported.
The $1.1mn solar plant is the result of a partnership between Ukrainian company Rodina and Germany’s Enerparc AG.
Ukraine has been steadily investing in renewable sources. During the first nine months of 2018, the country added over 500MW of renewable power capacity to its energy mix, more than twice as much as in 2017. Amongst the projects announced this year are:
• Ukrainian businessman Vasyl Khmelnytsky completed a 18MW solar power plant in the Kherson region, the businessman said on his Facebook page, as reported by Interfax. The plant is owned by UDP Renewables, part of Khmelnytsky’s UFuture Group holding company.
• Windkraft Ukraine, a company based in the country's Kherson region, is going to expand the installed capacity of its wind farms in this region to
170 MW by the end of the year, the company's director Carl Sturen said on September 20. The company is also mulling the next project to boost capac- ity by another 150-170 MW, Sturen told Interfax news agency, adding that the company used its own funds and bank loans in 2018.
• Ukraine Power Resources and Yuzhne Energy plan to build wind power plants with an installed capacity of 120 MW and 72 MW, respectively, in the Lymansky district of the Odesa region, according to a statement from the Ukrainian Wind Energy Association (UWEA).
• Norway's Scatec Solar is going to begin the construction of a €85mn solar power with a total capacity of 83 MW in the Cherkasy region this year, according to the company's June 12 statement.
A solar power plant next to Chernobyl is only one of half a dozen renewable energy projects in Ukraine.
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