Ukraine almost triples pace of installing renewable energy facilities in 2018, to 740 MW

A total of 742.5 MW of new renewable energy generating facilities were installed in Ukraine in 2018, which is 2.8 times more than a year ago, according to a report of the National Commission for Energy, Housing and Utilities Services Regulation (NCER) posted on its website.

The total capacity of renewable energy facilities reached 2.117 GW.

Average single-unit capacity of the facilities launched in 2018 was 3 MW.

Some 96% of all facilities launched in 2018 are wind farms and solar power plants.

Capacities of solar power plants doubled in a year (from 740 MW to 1.388 GW), while wind farms' capacities rose by 12.5% (from 465 MW to 533 MW). The capacities of plants consuming biomass grew from 39 MW to 51 MW and consuming biogas – from 34 MW to 46 MW.

The largest number of green facilities was launched in Kherson region – 227.2 MW. Some 117.4 MW appeared in Lviv region, 40-60 MW in Zaporizhia, Khmelnytsky, Dnipropetrovsk, Mykolaiv and Kirovohrad regions.

The commission in 2018 set a feed-in tariff for 202 facilities (163 solar power plants, 11 wind farms, 16 biogas and biomass plants and 12 small hydroelectric power plants).

The State Agency for Energy Efficiency and Energy Saving of Ukraine wrote on its Facebook page that in the past four years, over 6,000 households installed solar panels with a total capacity of 121 MW. Almost half of them – 3,000 – were installed in January-September 2018.

The share of renewable energy generation in Ukraine is around 2%, and the share of total revenue of generating companies is 8.7%.