Ukraine to repay debts to investors in renewable energy sector in orderly manner - President's Office deputy head
MOSCOW. July 3 (Interfax) - Ukraine will meet its obligations to investors in renewable energy and find a way to repay its accumulated debts to them, probably, through restructuring, Deputy Head of the President's Office Rostislav Shurma said.
"As for the debts accumulated in previous periods, and those obligations that the state has undertaken, we will keep a balance, probably restructuring them somehow. After all, it is a matter of trust. If we 'ditch' some investors, others will probably not come for the volumes ten times larger than they have now," the Ukrainian media quoted him as saying at a press conference in Kiev.
The authorities will resolve the debt problem in any case in an orderly manner. "Exactly in an orderly manner, he said. "I cannot say whether we will pay it off within certain timeframe or not. But it must be transparent and comfortable for investors, so that there would be confidence in the state," Shurma said.
Certain wrong decisions on the pattern of green energy market functioning in Ukraine were made earlier and these decisions resulted in certain consequences with debt accumulation, he said.
"The energy that we now see and which the whole world is building is a green energy without a grivna of subsidies from the state. This is because green energy, if properly built, is the cheapest energy in the world," he said.
Ukraine has a huge capacity for developing green energy, and "we can see how to build a pattern without subsidies, and really green energy both for Ukraine and for the entire European continent," he said.
As reported, the rate of settlements in the renewable energy generation sector reached 91% in January 2023, 57.9% in February, 51.1% in March, 56.3% in April, 46.5% in May and 42.3% in incomplete June, the Guaranteed Buyer state enterprise said. In total, the average level of settlements throughout this year stands at 53.5%.
The arrears of Ukrenergo, which offsets the level of the green tariff from its tariff for electricity transmission in the volumes that remain after the Guaranteed Buyer settlements for the produced green electricity by funds from its sale, increased from 18.2 billion grivna in late May to 21.5 billion grivna at the end of June.
Overall, since the beginning of 2023, the Guaranteed Buyer has paid 11.7 billion grivna to the renewable energy production sector for the electricity produced this year, and 0.96 billion grivna for the electricity produced in 2022.
In particular, the Ukrenergo debts to the renewable energy sector accrued due to the deficit of the very tariff for electricity transmission, as well as debts of the market participants to the company.
The level of settlements is 55.2% for 2022 and 99% for 2021.
Ukrainian Energy Minister German Galushchenko said at the Ukraine Recovery Conference (URC2023) in London that the investment opportunities for new energy facilities in Ukraine amount to $383 billion.
Under the Ukrainian Energy Strategy through 2050, which was presented at URC2023, Ukraine has a capacity to increase wind power generation up to 140 GW by 2050, which requires $134 billion, solar power up to 94 GW (demand of $62 billion), energy storage up to 38 GW ($25 billion), nuclear power generation up to 30 GW ($80 billion), thermal power plants and bioenergy facilities up to 18 GW (no data on financial needs) and hydro generation up to 9 GW ($4.5 billion).
In addition, it is noted that about $72 billion is needed to develop hydrogen technology, $5 billion for power transmission systems, and $4.5 billion for hydropower facilities.