Page 5 - UKRRptAug19

● a suspension of Russian gas transit through Ukraine starting in 2020
● an escalation of trade wars and rising geopolitical tensions
● an escalation of the military conflict, and the imposition of new trade restrictions by Russia .
2.0 Politics
2.1 Ukraine to rely on renewable energy
Ukraine itself set a goal to produce a quarter of its energy from renewable sources by 2035. At the end of 2018, total renewables excluding large hydropower accounted for only about 2 percent of total energy produced in the country, but represented more than 8 percent of total energy costs.
In contrast, the European Union produced 17.5 percent of its power from renewable sources in 2017, according to Eurostat data released earlier this year. Sweden’s is the highest, with about 54.5 percent by the end of 2018. The lowest, Luxembourg, has 6.4 percent renewable energy.
The EU members’ green power costs are also a lot lower. For example, Ukrainian plants launching in 2019 under the feed-in tariff can get 15 euro cents per kilowatt hour for solar energy, while Germany’s latest auction had costs dip below 6 euro cents per kilowatt-hour. Germany had about 40 percent of renewable generation by the start of 2019.
A 2015 IRENA report estimated Ukraine’s achievable renewable potential at 68.6 million tons of oil equivalent per year, approximately half of the total energy consumed in 2015. This estimate includes both electricity and heating. More realistically, the country can expect renewables to reach between 13 and 21 percent of its energy mix by 2030, according to the report.
As a major agricultural producer, Ukraine has millions of tons of biomass that can be harnessed into bioenergy. Agricultural and forestry waste, as well as energy crops and biogas can contribute to a feasible potential of over 800 petajoules per year — equivalent to a quarter of the country’s total final energy consumption in 2015. Biomass and biogas power plants now collectively comprise just over 100 megawatts as of the end of the first quarter of 2019.
“All the stakeholders that were earlier involved in preparing (Ukraine’s) energy strategy, they saw that there is huge potential in bio-energy,” said Oleksandra Gumeniuk, the director of the European Ukrainian Energy Agency, a business association. But, “because of the green tariff, this has skewed somewhat in favor of solar energy.”
Solar feed-in tariffs will drop by 25 percent in 2020, and by an additional 2.5 percent each year for three years. Wind will drop by 15 percent and 1.5 percent over the same periods, respectively.
According to IRENA, solar energy in Ukraine ranges from 1,070 kilowatt hours per square meter in the northern regions to 1,400 kilowatt hours per square meter in the south. Solar is the fastest growing source of green energy in
5 UKRAINE Country Report August 2019 www.intellinews.com