War, Wind Power, And The Green Revolution In Ukraine

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When Russia launched its unprovoked attack on Ukraine in February 2022, one of the first energy resiliency cracks to emerge was the vulnerability of the Ukrainian nuclear fleet. Now, even as the war approaches its fourth year, energy planners in Ukraine are turning to wind power and other renewable resources for energy security, resilience, and integration with the European green hydrogen economy.

Wind Power As A Wartime Energy Solution

Building new energy facilities in wartime can be a Sisyphean task. However, wind power is a special case. In a typical wind farm, turbines are scattered over long distances. Knocking one out with a missile is just a temporary setback. Putting every turbine in a wind farm out of commission is not worth the expense, time, and risk. In the case of Russia, the missile strategy has focused on breaking down willpower by attacking hospitals, schools, and other civilian targets, not taking down a wind turbine or two.

Substations and transmission lines are still vulnerable, but the repair and replacement timeline is shorter for those types of infrastructure than repairing the significant damage to a fossil energy power plant, let alone a nuclear facility.

“Despite all the cheerleading for nuclear energy over at the COP28 climate talks, national security risks have taken center stage ever since Russia launched its unprovoked attack on Ukraine,” CleanTechnica observed last year. Nuclear advocates have raised the tempo since then. However, as of last year, Ukraine was already well on its way to making a mark in the wind power field, with plans for building the largest onshore wind farm in Eastern Europe.

More Wind Power For Ukraine

Almost as a sort of test case for wind power resiliency, early in the war, the Ukrainian energy firm DTEK Renewables began building a 19-turbine, 114-megawatt wind farm just 60 miles from the front line, in the Mykolaiv region near the Black Sea. The wind farm went into operation last May as the Tyligulska Wind Power Plant, billed as the only facility of its kind to be completed in an active conflict zone.

DTEK also signaled its intention to expand the wind farm to 500 megawatts with a commitment to order 64 additional turbines from its partner, Vestas.

“This wind farm has become a symbol of resilience and faith in the Ukrainian energy sector, as it was built by Ukrainians during a full-scale war just 100 km away from the front,” DTEK observed in an update on the project earlier this year. DTEK also noted that the new wind power plant incorporates new technologies aimed at increasing the capacity of Ukraine’s transmission connections with Europe.

“Ukraine needs distributed generation, including wind power, more than ever,” DTEK emphasized.

They did not let the grass grow under their feet. In 2023, the company also began planning for the 650-megawatt DTEK Poltavska Wind Power Plant, to be located on lands of the Hlobyne territorial community in Poltava Oblast. The wind farm, including environmental studies, is moving forward, with construction slated for 2025.

Investors Step Up For Wind Power

Vestas is just one of the non-domestic energy stakeholders supporting Ukraine’s transition to wind power and other renewables. Another example is the UK firm Elementum Energy, which is focusing on operations in western Ukraine.

Last year, the company added 60 megawatts of wind power to the Ukrainian grid with the completion of Phase 2 of the Dnistrovska Wind Farm. This year, the company took the final steps towards acquiring a group of wind power projects totaling 200 megawatts, described in an email to CleanTechnica earlier this week.

“This project demonstrates the critical role of business in recovery and sustainable development during uncertain times,” explains the Elementum’s Managing Director, Olga Rybachuk. In addition to its own investment, Elementum expects funding from international development banks and credit agencies as well as local banks.

The entire group of projects is on the fast track for construction-readiness by the end of next year. In a poke at nuclear advocates, Elementum also emphasizes that “wind farms also offer a practical and resilient solution to energy needs during crises” due to their study-to-commissioning development cycle of just three years.

Green Steel And The Green Hydrogen Connection

Wind power is just one element in Ukraine’s plans for a green recovery. Energy planners are leveraging biomass and other renewable energy resources, too, with the aim of joining the European Union as a strong contributor to decarbonization and economic development rather than coming hat in hand as a supplicant seeking aid.

Considering the EU’s focus on building a new green hydrogen economy, it’s not surprising to find Ukraine focusing on green hydrogen as well.

Aside from the potential for exporting green hydrogen to Europe, Ukraine will also need a robust green hydrogen industry to decarbonize its steel industry in accordance with EU standards. In a recent analysis posted by the World Economic Forum, energy analysts point out that pre-war Ukraine was the 14th largest producer of steel in the world, but it was “also one of the dirtiest in the world.”

“In 2020, the Ukrainian steel industry was responsible for 48 Mt CO2, 15% of the country’s entire carbon dioxide emissions,” write Oxford University Associate Professor Vlad Mykhnenko and Alli Devlin, Senior Decarbonisation Advisor for the organization ResponsibleSteel.

Mykhnenko and Devlin note that Ukraine has already developed a near zero emission roadmap to decarbonize its steel industry with the assumption that it will join the EU. “This makes Ukraine’s steel decarbonisation non-negotiable,” they emphasize.

More Wind Power For A Green Revolution

With EU accession in mind, the two analysts also make the case for shifting the primary location of the Ukrainian steel industry from the eastern part of the country to the west, taking advantage of both land and sea transportation routes to the EU. As one of several ripple effects, the new green steel industry will also propel the demand for both green hydrogen and green ammonia fuel for steelmaking.

In that context, Elementum Energy’s investment in wind power across the western region of Ukraine is particularly significant.

Another investor of note is the German firm NOTUS Energy, which unveiled a plan last year to repurpose the site of the notorious Chernobyl nuclear disaster for wind power and other renewables in partnership with the Ukrainian transmission stakeholder Ukrenergo.

NOTUS’s initial studies yielded the potential for a 1-gigawatt wind power opportunity. “A wind farm of this size would make a substantial contribution to the expansion of renewable energies in Ukraine and strengthen the independence and decentralization of the Ukrainian energy supply,” explained the Ukrainian branch of the firm, NOTUS energo Ukraina.

Next steps include radiation and environmental analyses as well as an assessment of the transmission infrastructure. That could take a while, so stay tuned for more on that.

Despite the lessons of Chernobyl, Ukrainian energy planners have not entirely ditched the idea of expanding nuclear capacity. At COP28 last year, Ukraine joined the US and 20 or so other nations in endorsing a declaration calling for a tripling of nuclear energy globally. Nevertheless, the US and other members of the international community have raised grave concerns about nuclear power plant security in the face of Russia’s continued attacks on civilian infrastructure. Against this backdrop, wind power advocates and other renewable energy stakeholders have a strong case to make for transitioning to a low carbon economy without the risk of another nuclear disaster.

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Photo (cropped): Wind power continues to add megawatts of clean power to the Ukrainian electricity grid, even as Russia continues its drive to demolish the country’s energy infrastructure (Dnistrovska wind power plant courtesy of Elementum Energy, via email).