In 2-3 years, new distributed generation should replace existing thermal generation - Ukrenergo head Kudrytskyi
The chairman of the board of the Ukrenergo national energy company, Volodymyr Kudrytskyi, believes that in two to three years the new distributed generation should replace the existing thermal generation.
He said this in an interview with Telegraf, Ukrainian News Agency reports.
"It will have to completely or almost completely replace the existing thermal generation in two or three years. Moreover, it will not be a one-to-one replacement, that is, a megawatt of a coal-fired thermal power plant with a megawatt of a gas turbine plant or a biofuel plant. It will be a replacement of a conventional megawatt of TPP with a mix of industrial wind turbines and solar batteries, large storage systems, gas highly maneuverable stations, possibly biofuel stations. Instead of a 1,000 MW thermal coal station, there will be 100 small stations of 10 MW each. The structure of the energy market and the architecture of the energy system will be changed," he said.
At the same time, nuclear energy will remain the basis of Ukrainian generation.
"But renewable energy sources will develop - solar and wind power plants, because they are cheaper than all the others. I really hope that hydropower will develop, because it is a competitive advantage of any energy system. This always means that electricity will be cheaper, and there is flexibility in the system, which is necessary for balancing. Simply put, we will have decarbonized capacities, that is, able to quickly change the operating modes. In addition to increasing flexibility of the energy system, there is another an important goal that can be achieved with the help of distributed generation. It will be more difficult for the enemy to hit 200 small power plants of various types than 20-25 large power plants," Kudrytskyi said.
According to him, a number of projects are already in the stage of active development.
"There are many ideas, we all welcome them, but the bet is on traditional projects for Europe, the USA, and Japan to install energy storage systems. Only in the last two years, during the war, Ukrenergo agreed to various companies' technical conditions for the connection of storage facilities to 1.2 GW. This indicates a very high interest of private investors in this segment. I am sure that we will see the first such system in Ukraine already this year," Kudrytskyi added.
As Ukrainian News Agency earlier reported, the Cabinet of Ministers expects to significantly decentralize the energy system during the second half of 2024.