DTEK announces the largest private investment in Ukraine’s energy sector in history
22 January 14:28
Ukraine’s largest private energy company, DTEK, said on Wednesday that it plans to invest 450 million euros ($468.59 million) to expand and increase the capacity of a wind farm near the Black Sea coast. Reuters reported this with reference to DTEK’s announcement, Komersant ukrainskyi said.
According to DTEK, this project will be the largest private sector investment in Ukraine since Russia’s full-scale invasion and the largest private investment in the country’s energy sector in history.
“We continue to strengthen the Ukrainian energy sector during the war. This year, DTEK plans to accelerate the construction of the Tiligul wind farm. The number of turbines at the wind farm will increase from 19 to 83 and the capacity will quadruple from 114 to 500 MW. The total investment in construction will amount to 650 million euros,” the company said in a statement.
The company also said that at full capacity, Tiligul wind farm will produce 1.7 TWh of electricity per year, which is enough to supply 900,000 Ukrainian homes with electricity, equivalent to the energy needed to charge every smartphone in the EU for a year.
DTEK intends to complete the construction of the expanded wind farm by the end of 2026.
Reuters also draws attention to other details of the project. In particular, it is reported that the company, owned by Ukraine’s richest man, Rinat Akhmetov, has reached a financial agreement with creditors to buy 64 wind turbines from Danish manufacturer Vestas.
According to DTEK, 370 million euros of the investment will be obtained through bank loans secured by the Danish Export Investment Fund, with the rest financed by DTEK.
Reuters also reminds that the majority of DTEK’s generating capacity has traditionally been in its network of thermal power plants, which have been intensively bombed by russia during the three-year war in Ukraine.
Last summer, DTEK said that 90% of its thermal power capacity was out of commission.
What is known about Tiligul wind farm
This wind farm was launched in May 2023 and is located 400 kilometers south of Kyiv in the Mykolaiv region.
As reported by RBC-Ukraine with reference to the press service of DTEK, in the first year of operation, Tiligul wind farm supplied 333 million kWh of electricity to the grid.
It is noted that this station became the first in Ukraine to use the latest technologies. In particular, the station has installed POD devices that increase the capacity of Ukraine’s energy bridges with Europe, which is very important at a time when the country has problems with energy supply due to Russian shelling.
