A new Swedish funding programme for the development of long-term sustainable district heating systems in Ukraine was announced on 5 September 2018 at the Nordic Green to Scale seminar in Kyiv. The aim of the new Sweden-Ukraine District Heating Fund is to demonstrate how Ukraine could benefit from modern and energy-efficient district heating with a significant share of production based on renewable and waste heat sources, ultimately meeting EU requirements.Sweden is providing support in the total amount of EUR 10 million, of which EUR 6 million is directly invested into the Fund and EUR 4 million will be allocated to technical assistance during the implementation of the program, to help municipalities prepare the projects in the best possible way.
Currently, a major part of the district heating systems in Ukraine is outdated, energy-consuming and inefficient. By the end of 2017, about 46 percent of the households needed state subsidies to cope with the rising heating costs. The announced support programme is a continuation of the DemoUkrainaDH project, launched in 2012 with an aim to support municipalities in Ukraine through co-financing of environmentally sustainable and energy efficient demonstration projects in the Ukrainian district heating sector. Six demonstration projects, successfully implemented in Vinnytsia, Zhytomyr, Oleksandria, Kamyanets-Podilsky, Poltava, and Ivano-Frankivsk showed tangible results – up to 30% in gas savings, 20-50% electricity savings and a significant reduction of CO2 emissions (around 45%). New support facility foresees 4-5 more cities to be included in the program.
“I am very glad to announce the continuation of Swedish support to district heating in Ukraine. This is an area where we have a lot to share, having gone through decades of modernization of our district heating systems. I have also visited several of the ongoing projects, and I am very impressed with the results that NEFCO and our Ukrainian partners have achieved, so far”, said Martin Hagström, Ambassador of Sweden to Ukraine.
The focus of the new funding programme is on the creation of district heating systems large enough to enable effective use of renewable and waste heat sources with low environmental and climate impact, as well as improved district heating services enabling the customers to control their heat consumption based on their needs. This, in turn, will also result in improved indoor climate and hot water supply.
