EU loans support Ukraine’s local energy backup projects

The author says Russian bombing campaigns this year have targeted power and heating facilities in an effort to break morale. Last winter, many people went without electricity and heat for much of the season. Among those hit hardest were elderly residents of poorly insulated homes, where temperatures fell to minus 20 degrees.

Ukraine has not yet managed to shift from its Soviet-era regulated energy system to a more decentralised and resilient one. But residents have begun building backup capacity themselves. During a visit in May, the author documented people installing bespoke systems in gardens, sheds and on rooftops to prepare for another difficult winter.

Small solar plants and battery storage systems have been set up around the country to keep hospitals running and limit the time children spend in darkness in school bomb shelters. In Kyiv, new energy cooperatives are bringing together scarce expertise in a system still dependent on a handful of large Soviet-era power plants. The author says EU loans have helped make many of these local and communal projects possible.