Ukraine

How Solar Supports Ukraine

- Adam Clare

Solar panels on grass

In the ongoing war caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine power plants have been attacked by both sides to hurt military and civilian operations. Beyond the obvious horrors of war the loss of power generation makes heating homes more challenging and people are suffering as a result. As Russia continues to target large power installations the solution is to turn to distributed power generation, and the best for of distributed power is renewable power. There’s now an organization in Ukraine installing solar power throughout the country to improve reliability of the grid and make it harder for Russia to cause blackouts.

What’s more, if we all follow Ukraine’s lead and get off of centralized power generation and move to a renewably powered electric economy then Russia would have fewer customers to sell oil to.

Hospitals save thousands of lives every day providing medical care to the civilian population, and for that they need an uninterrupted electricity supply. Water utilities provide water supply to the population. Solar power plants are a long-term solution to the problem, a reliable protection against possible worsening of the situation, and also one of the first steps for Ukrainian municipalities towards the green recovery of the country.

The non-government organization Ecoclub with the support of the Solar Energy Association of Ukraine, launched the Solar Aid For Ukraine Project ITS PURPOSE IS TO PROVIDE UKRAINIAN CRITICAL INFRASTRUCTURE WITH A RELIABLE SOURCE OF ELECTRICITY, WHICH IS SOLAR POWER PLANTS

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Ukrainian Company Produces Easy to Install Solar Panels to get Europe Off Russian Gas

- Adam Clare
Solar panels on grass

Oil is not just a reason countries go to war, it’s used during war to destabilize allies. Russia’s war in Ukraine is no exception to this as the Russians are profiting from selling Europe gas while threatening to cut off gas supplies to the continent at the same time.

A Ukrainian company, We Do Solar, started selling their easy to install solar panels the same month Russia advanced towards Kyiv. The panels themselves are impressive since they are a self contained system that integrates into existing home electrical system. The core idea is to get them on balconies of towers so individual units can augment their household energy consumption.

In theory, if every balcony in Europe had solar panels such as WeDoSolar’s, it would make getting off Russian oil and gas a great deal easier.

Designed by German engineers and coming insured as part of the offer, the lightweight panels weigh 1 kg each and plug into a standard power socket. The WeDoSolar Microinverter then pushes the power into the home grid, allowing the panels to power home appliances ahead of using the normal grid, since solar is always used ahead of normal grid power, claims the company.

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Former Nuclear Disaster Site Could Become Solar Plant

- Adam Clare

Ukarine countryside

One of the worst energy disaster in human history was the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster. It has left a giant chunk of land around Pripyat uninhabitable to humans (although the rest of nature has been thriving because humans aren’t there), now the Ukrainian government wants to reuse the land for a new source of electricity. A collection of companies are proposing that the land from the disaster be converted to the world’s largest solar farm!

The development of the 1GWh(!) installation makes a lot of sense considering there is useful land and infrastructure in the area, and Ukraine needs the power.

Because Chernobyl was a site for energy production in its former capacity, transmission lines already exist. “The Chernobyl site has really good potential for renewable energy,” Semerak said. “We already have high-voltage transmission lines that were previously used for the nuclear stations, the land is very cheap and we have many people trained to work at power plants.”

As long as environmental and banking concerns are addressed, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development indicated it would be interested in participating.

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