Lending a shoulder. The EU has found a way to help Ukraine mitigate the issue of blackouts

A €100 million grant agreement was signed by Volodymyr Kudrytskyy, Chairman of the Board of NEC Ukrenergo, and Lorenz Gessner, Head of the Representative Office of the German state development bank KfW in Ukraine. The signing took place in Kyiv with Deputy Energy Minister of Ukraine Roman Andarak and members of the EU Delegation to Ukraine in attendance, Ukrenergo’s press service reported on Telegram

The European Commission has authorized KfW to allocate funds to Ukrenergo from the special EU budget programme, the Ukraine Investment Facility, to finance and implement several priority energy projects.

These projects include modernising high-voltage substations in western Ukraine, developing interstate interconnectors to link Ukraine’s power system with continental Europe, repairing and restoring equipment at high-voltage substations damaged or destroyed by Russian shelling, and procuring and delivering new equipment.

Additionally, a portion of the funds will be used to enhance the physical security of Ukrenergo’s substations.

Ukrenergo noted that this grant is the second phase of the targeted programme Reconstruction and Rehabilitation of Ukraine’s Electricity Transmission Infrastructure. The first phase, worth €15 million, was agreed upon with KfW during the Ukraine Recovery Conference in Berlin in June 2024.

Since the beginning of the full-scale war, Ukrenergo has secured a total of €324 million with KfW’s support, while the overall amount of international aid has reached €1.5 billion.

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