Page 71 - UKRRptDec20

Betting that online sales will keep surging, Allo Group, the consumer electronics retailer, is launching its own nationwide delivery service, ​Allo Express in Ukraine. Citing “today’s realities,” Allo CEO Maksym Raskin said the company decided to “to invest in the creation of our own postal operator.” The package delivery service will have desks in each of Allo’s 140 stores in Ukraine.
9.2.9 ​Utilities corporate news
9.1.10 ​Renewables corporate news
DTEK is investing $10mn this year to construct Ukraine’s first fully automated electric substation​. Increasingly common in Western Europe, this kind of substation is entirely enclosed and controlled by a dispatching console – features designed to minimize outages. Located in Odesa’s densely populated Kyivskiy neighborhood, the substation will supply 52 MW to 5,000 apartments, reports Oleksandr Fomenko, general director at DTEK Odesa Grids.
A pioneer Canadian renewables investor is accusing Igor Kolomoisky and his business partners of trying steal a 10.5 MW solar plant. ​Built by Calgary’s TIU Canada, the plant was inaugurated in January 2018 and hailed as the first investment under the new Canada Ukraine Free Trade Agreement. Built largely to feed Kolomoisky’s Nikopol Ferroalloy Plant, the solar plant’s substation is on the Ferroalloy plant grounds. The Ferroalloy plant controls road access to the solar plant. In the summer of 2019, Kolomoisky stopped paying the green tariff for solar and wind electricity nationwide. On March 1st, the Ferroalloy plant cut off TIU Canada from the substation. Later, in face to face talks with TIU Canada, Kolomoisky offered to buy the plant he had closed. CEO Michael Yurkovich says in a press release sent Thursday’s to Canada’s financial press: “This is a clear case of oligarchs pressuring a foreign investor and trying to steal assets.” Noting that the cutoff has cost his company €1.5mn since March, he said: “We are mustering our resources and will fight this case in Ukraine, Canada, or any jurisdiction needed to win.” The TIU Canada plant in Nikopol is one of several completed solar plants around Ukraine that are not functioning because of problems connecting with power grids, Artem Semenyshyn, Executive Director of the Solar Energy Association of Ukraine, told Interfax Ukraine Friday. He said: “It is very bad when we lose the already built “green” generation facilities, which are now idle and do not increase the share of clean electricity.” If the government does not work to hook up these completed plants, the portion of solar power in the nation’s energy mix could start to fall, he warned. TIU Canada’s Vita Solar is one of several dozen small renewable companies that are suing for nearly $18mn from the Guaranteed Buyer, the state company that is obliged to buy power from renewable developers. By the end of next year, the Guaranteed Buyer is to pay almost $1bn in overdue electricity bills. Two weeks ago the Rada passed at first reading a bill to extend state guarantees to ‘green bonds’ that the government would launch to cover the debt.
Recently, Ukrainian WindFarm and Chinese PowerChina signed a contract to build a $1bn worth wind farm in Ukraine​ which is set to become the largest onshore wind farm in Europe. An 800 MW project to be built in the Manhush and Nikolske districts of the Donetsk region. As WindFarm states, the project implementation demonstrates an ultimately new and beneficial approach for the state in terms of wind
71​ UKRAINE Country Report​ December 2020 ​ ​www.intellinews.com