By KYIV. May 15 (Interfax-Ukraine) – Slavutych City Council (Kyiv region) for a NEFCO (Nordic Environment Finance Corporation) grant of approximately EUR6 million will build a bio-thermal power plant with a capacity of approximately 700 kW to provide electricity to the local critical infrastructure, Slavutych Mayor Yuriy Fomichev said.
“We are implementing a new project, which will begin this year. This is the construction of a bio-thermal power plant using local fuel, which will provide electricity to all our critical infrastructure from what is under our feet, for example, wood,” he told an Energy Reform correspondent on the sidelines of the high-level meeting Covenant of Mayors in Ukraine: Planning Sustainable Development Together, held in Lviv.
Fomichev noted that the implementation of the project is designed for 18 months, but suggested that it “will last a little longer, given the difficult logistics processes.”
“In any case, we plan that the facility will be in operation by the heating season 2024/2025,” the mayor shared his plans.
At the same time, he noted that there is a need for the implementation of a project to generate electricity, adding that during the power outage, the city was without electricity for 6 days.
“We do not aim to add alternative heat generation. The key is electricity for critical infrastructure from local fuel. In addition, this bio-TPP will give heat for hot water in the summer. We already have enough thermal capacity on biomass, when private ones start working, if there are attractive rules of the game,” Fomichev explained.
The mayor of Slavutych clarified that the existing alternative heat generation capacity can already replace more than 50% of gas in the centralized system, but in fact in the past heating season this figure was about 25%.
“There are rules of the game that are not very satisfying for investors. Today, alternative generation must sell its thermal energy at 10% cheaper than gas. So what are we stimulating? Gas? The philosophy itself is somewhat twisted. We say – let’s replace gas, but set the rules of the game when replacement is cheaper. It shouldn’t be like this,” the mayor expressed his opinion.
According to him, now the local authorities are actively negotiating with the Ministry of Restoration in order to make the rules of the game in the alternative energy sources market attractive to investors.
