Eurac Research's advice to the Ukrainian government on renewables

For the past months Eurac Research has been offering extensive advice to the Ukrainian government on promoting sustainable development and renewable energy. The consultancy, implemented by an Italo-Austrian team, included the Austrian Energy Agency, Austrian Environmental Agency, Eurac Research Institute for Renewable Energy and was coordinated by E-Control. The consultancy has been implemented for the State Agency for Energy Efficiency and Energy Saving of Ukraine in the framework of an EUTwinning project. EU Twinning is a development programme designed and funded by the European Union to improve collaboration between EU Member States and border countries.

Eurac Research has been involved in the consultancy on behalf of the Italian Ministry for the Environment and the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs with the ambit of assessing the challenges that could be encountered by the Ukrainian government during the implementation of a national energy plan that focuses more on renewables.

"Together with our partners, we have paved the way for the implementation of an energy strategy stepwise enhancing the contribution of renewable energy – in the electrical, thermal and mobility sector," explains Wolfram Sparber, Director of the Institute for Renewable Energy at Eurac Research, "we have not only taken into account the technological perspective, but also possible difficulties from a legislative and organisational point of view as well as the economic opportunities in exploiting the high potential of locally available renewable energy resources".

In particular, the analysis, carried out by Eurac Research’s experts on the current situation, as well as on the citizen’s and other stakeholder’s (companies, research institutions, administrations,media and non-governmental associations) perceptions, has shown how in the past years Ukraine has managed to attract sizeable investment, in the implementation of renewable energy. There is now the clear interest to enhance a greater involvement of citizens and of small and medium enterprises in the implementation of small scale renewable applications on buildings and in communities. "We have recommended strategies to improve communication to citizens and businesses who do not currently have all the necessary information on possible incentives for the installation of renewable energy plants and on the possible advantages - including economic ones - by using renewables. As well the knowledge and smooth implementation of administrative procedures resulted as important aspect," explains Alyona Zubaryeva, senior researcher at Eurac Research.

Eurac Research's renewable energy experts have also organised training for Ukrainian personnel who have been introduced to technical tools used in the simulation of energy systems in order to independently improve possible decarbonisation scenarios for the country.