Last fall, Russian airstrikes on Ukraine's power grid plunged much of the country into darkness, but one water company managed to light up its pumps. Before the war, the field of environmentally friendly solar panels became a means of countering the Kremlin's attacks.
Today, a growing number of hospitals, schools, police stations and other large buildings in Ukraine are rushing to install solar power.
A decentralized, low-carbon energy system is emerging as a key component of Ukraine's reconstruction efforts. Seven months of Russian attacks on the power grid have severely damaged it. Ukrainian doctors, academics and others have found that efforts to increase resilience can improve security, making it more difficult for offline blackouts. Meanwhile , Ukrainian politicians are setting ambitious clean energy goals and trying to ignore their pre-war reputation for lagging behind on climate issues.
A man walks through the rubble of a building destroyed by gunfire this month in Irpin, Kiev region. (Ed Ramm for The Washington Post)Deputy Energy Minister Yaroslav Demchenkov said renewable energy as well as small nuclear reactors are among the priorities of the country's reconstruction efforts. Both would help spread energy production beyond the highly centralized system the country had before the war, reducing emissions and making it more sustainable.
According to the International Renewable Energy Agency, Ukraine produced 11% of its electricity from renewable sources in 2020, although more than half of its electricity comes from low-emission nuclear power plants. The country aims to produce 30 gigawatts of clean energy by 2030, which would meet about half of Ukraine's needs.
"Before the war, people only thought about economics. Now it's about energy security," said Dimitri Sakaluk, who works on energy projects for Ecoclub Rivon, an environmental organization in western India.
Pay for the sun
Renewable energy advocates want solar power to be a major part of new energy. Although solar panels cannot easily match the power of nuclear power plants, supporters say they are cheaper, faster to install and more useful than nuclear power as a quick solution to Ukraine's energy and security needs. Download
If efforts to deploy renewable energy succeed, proponents hope they can accelerate Ukraine's green future faster than expected before the war. Some hope the installation of solar panels will be an incentive for some Ukrainians to take further steps to reduce carbon emissions, increase their self-sufficiency and increase their ability to resist Russian aggression.
"Such a decentralized system will be more difficult to destroy," said Kostiantyn Krinytskyi, head of the energy department at EcoAction, a leading environmental organization in Ukraine. "You can't blow up every building. Self-sufficiency will help." Now we have seen what centralization means in our energy system.
© Ed Ram for The Washington Post Kostiantyn Khryntsky is the energy chief at EcoAction, Ukraine's leading environmental organization. 
© Ed Ramm, Evan Patasnick, principal of School No. 1, for the Washington Post . 17, from Erpin, greets classmates while inspecting the school's rooftop solar panels 
© Ed Ram for The Washington Post Children play with their teachers outside School No. 17 from Irpin.Officials say Ukraine recently agreed to resume power exports to neighboring countries, a sign that its power generation capacity continues to recover after the winter bombing of the power system. Ukrainian and allied government officials have warned that this year's cold months could be even more difficult than the winter that just ended, as the grid begins to suffer more than last year. Getting enough diesel to run all the backup generators is also a challenge.
"The situation in the energy sector is still very fragile," Demchenkov said in an interview. "At the moment, it's a very big challenge to have enough equipment and fuel reserves during this period, because we know that Russia will use the winter as a weapon again. The physics of power plant protection is really important to us."
The European Union has pledged to send thousands of solar panels to Ukraine. Ukrainians also expect aid from the United States and elsewhere.
Hope advocates, meanwhile, hope that existing solar installations can serve as examples of a greener future.
A sign of war
Health workers at a small hospital in Kyiv's Horynka town learned about the difficulty of working without electricity early in last year's war. Horenka is located near Hostomel, whose military airfield was one of the first targets of the Russian paratroopers. The city faced heavy Russian fire. The hospital was never closed, but it was without power on the second day of occupation and was not restored for more than two months. Without electricity, the heating system is partially defective. Then a shell hit the street outside the building, blowing out windows and damaging the facade.
Now the hospital has been rebuilt. This winter, like many parts of Ukraine, I used diesel generators to run during power outages. But diesel generators consume a lot of fuel, are prone to breakdowns, and their noise and fumes make them unsuitable for long-term use in places like hospitals.
© Ed Ram Horenka for The Washington Post Solar panels on top of a small hospital catch sunlight as children play. 
© Ed Ram for The Washington Post Natalia Zipora performs an ultrasound on a patient at a solar-powered health clinic in Horenka. 
© Ed Ram for The Washington Post Denis Sotsaev, who works for Greenpeace Central and Eastern Europe, and Konstantin Kryntsky, head of energy at EcoAction, stand next to the energy and battery monitoring system at Hrynka Hospital in Kyiv.Next winter, Horinka's health workers hope to avoid them. In February, workers installed solar panels on its steep roof, completing a project that should meet about half of a typical hospital's electricity needs, enough to keep critical equipment online even if the grid goes out. The battery will extend the solar panel at night. Again, even if the network goes out, electric heat pumps can keep the hospital warm. Solar panels and batteries for a 12.6 kW system cost $11,700, which is comparable to what a home of that size would use.
"We need a long-term solution for such a hospital," said Denis Sotsaev, who works for Greenpeace Central and Eastern Europe in Kyiv and helped organize the solar hospital project with Krinitsky.
According to him, the first question Sotsaev asks from abroad is whether it makes sense to promote renewable energy projects when Russia continues to bombard the country. But he says he misunderstood the requirement.
He said, the people have returned. "People can't live without hospitals now. They can't live without schools."
He and others also didn't expect solar panels to become targets. Given the project's small scale, it wouldn't make sense for Russia to use an expensive and rare missile to attack rooftop solar panels.
"If it's damaged it's more expensive to hit it with a missile than to repair it," he said.
Large-scale renewable energy projects continue despite the war, including a wind farm in the southern Mykolaiv region that completed its first phase in March.
Many solar projects
Solar energy development efforts are not always easy. Winters in Ukraine can be long, and the country is located far north – at the same latitude as southern Canada and the northern United States – and daylight hours are short in December and January. Solar advocates say the panels still produce enough electricity to be viable during those months.
Ukraine does not have a net metering law that would allow solar panel owners to sell excess energy into the system, although parliament is working on the law and Deputy Energy Minister Demchenkov said he hopes to finalize it. until the fall
German Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck visited Horenka last month to announce that his government would provide $1.1 million for eight similar solar pilot projects in Ukraine, urging German companies and philanthropists to follow suit. Ukrainian environmental organizations have identified dozens of hospitals, schools and other public buildings where officials want to install solar panels or find other ways to become self-sufficient.
© Ed Ramm, Ivan Potashnik, principal of School No. for the Washington Post . 17 from Erpin, checking documents for a solar energy storage battery system in the school's basement. 
© Ed Ram for The Washington Post A solar meter sits in the basement of School No. 17. 
© Ed Ram for The Washington Post Children work on computers powered by solar panels at School No. 17.The Sicilians, who met Habeck during his visit, demonstrated the value of renewable energy in the wartime community as the municipal water department installed solar panels. Late last year, after more than a week of power outages across much of southern Mykolaiv Oblast, utilities in the city of Voznesensk were able to keep water running despite other businesses being suspended. Waterworks installed a 50 kW solar array in 2020 as part of a green initiative.
"People have changed their thinking about solar energy," the Sicilians said. The durability of pumping stations has inspired a new wave of inquiries from businesses and homeowners who want their own solar panels.
If solar advocates are successful, they hope it will have a lasting impact after the war. For example, solar panels in schools can incorporate climate-friendly practices into children's lives, said Anastasia Vereshchenska, director of international development at Energy Law Ukraine, the group that installed solar panels at a school in Irpin, Kyiv. At the end of last year and this year has built another 15 projects in Ukraine.
He said, our big goal is to change the culture of this country. "We want children to be part of the sustainable development of Ukraine in the future, especially in the post-war period."
