Germany to invest $116mn in Ukrainian Efficiency

Germany is investing up to €100mn ($116mn) in energy efficiency programmes in Ukraine, the country's national investment council said July 20. The law was signed by the president earlier in the day.

The council said that the fund would help to reduce the consumption of expensive gas, to complete the renovation of buildings and save about $3bn of energy resources. It quote experts saying that the value of energy efficiency market in Ukrain would be $50n over the next ten years, and "the need of modernisation is already crucial."

At the signing ceremony, the president Petro Poroshenko said that the International Finance Corporation would conduct an audit. "It will be a member of the supervisory board of the fund jointly with recognised authorities to ensure the effective use of each cent of budget funds,” he said, according to a report by Interfax.

According to the International Energy Agency, Ukraine has some of the world's most energy-intensive industries, despite many closures when the Soviet Union dissolved and Russia stopped subsidising it with cheap gas. It comes third in the list of east European, Caucasian and central Asia energy-intensive economies, behind only Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan, both of which – unlike Ukraine – are energy-rich and export gas.

Germany is leading Europe in implementing renewable technology for power generation, although Ukraine will not be able to afford Germany's subsidies of tens of billions of euros a year for wind and solar capacity.

William Powell