Ukraine’s biggest energy company is moving renewables to the forefront of its plan to rebuild a more secure grid after four years of devastating attacks. In DTEK’s first energy transition plan, published this week, the company committed to entirely closing down its fleet of coal-fired power plants and coal mines by 2035, and to boost its investment in wind, solar, batteries, and grids.
Diversifying the company’s assets from large, centralized, Soviet-era power plants to a much broader network of distributed, low-carbon stations will both allow it to meet a goal of reducing its full-scope carbon footprint 90% below 2023 levels by 2050, and make the system more resilient to future attacks by Russia, Chief Sustainability Officer Jeff Oatham told Semafor: “Energy security and energy transition are not things that Ukraine has to choose between.” The challenge is finance: Grid modernization alone will require at least $7 billion over the next decade, he said, and at the moment it’s nearly impossible to draw investment into the country without guarantees from foreign governments.
