Wind power Wind power is the use of wind energy to generate useful work. Historically, wind power was used by sails, windmills and windpumps, but today it is mostly used to generate electricity. This article deals only with wind power for electricity ge ...

Ukraine Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the List of European countries by area, second-largest country in Europe after Russia, which Russia–Ukraine border, borders it to the east and northeast. Ukraine also borders Belarus to the nor ...

is mostly in areas affected by the

Russo-Ukrainian War The Russo-Ukrainian War began in February 2014 and is ongoing. Following Ukraine's Revolution of Dignity, Russia Russian occupation of Crimea, occupied and Annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation, annexed Crimea from Ukraine. It then ...

. At the end of 2021 there was 1.7

gigawatts The watt (symbol: W) is the unit of power or radiant flux in the International System of Units (SI), equal to 1 joule per second or 1 kg⋅m2⋅s−3. It is used to quantify the rate of energy transfer. The watt is named in honor o ...

(GW) capacity of electricity in Ukraine was wind power. In 2024 the IEA suggested installing 11 GW more by 2030.

History

By the end of 2017, 505 MW of wind power plants had been launched in Ukraine, with 138 MW remaining in the occupied territory of Donetsk and Luhansk regions, and another 87.8 MW left in occupied Crimea. As of March 2019, 8 wind farms were being built in Ukraine with a total capacity of almost 1 GW. This is Ovid Wind (Odesa Oblast) - 87 MW; Black Sea WPP (Mykolaiv Oblast) - 70 MW; Prymorska WPP (Zaporizhia Oblast) - 200 MW; Overianivska (Kherson Oblast) - 70 MW; Kramatorsk WPP (Donetsk Oblast) - 70 MW; Orlivska WPP (Zaporizhia Oblast) - 100 MW; WES Sivash (Kherson Oblast) - 250 MW; Dnipro-Bug WPP (Kherson Oblast) - 110 MW. The 114 MW Tylihulska park was under construction near Mykolaiv in early 2023.

Resilience

One GW was planned to be added in 2022, but the Russian invasion stalled development. Wind farms are more resilient to attack than large gas and coal-fired power stations, because they are spread over a larger area so many more missiles are needed to destroy them. Before the war, Ukraine had around 55 GW of power station capacity, mainly coal, nuclear and gas. By 2024, Russian missiles and takeovers had reduced this to 20 GW. Of the 700 wind turbines in Ukraine, Russian drones damaged 11, including a 4 MW turbine in the 40 MW Dnistrovska wind farm in January 2024. The country's only wind turbine manufacturer moved 1,500 km from the frontline to the western border in 2022.

Potential

The coasts of the Black and Azov Seas, the mountainous regions of the Crimean peninsula (especially the north-eastern coast) and the Carpathians,

Odesa Odesa, also spelled Odessa, is the third most populous List of cities in Ukraine, city and List of hromadas of Ukraine, municipality in Ukraine and a major seaport and transport hub located in the south-west of the country, on the northwestern ...

, Kherson,

Zaporizhzhia Zaporizhzhia, formerly known as Aleksandrovsk or Oleksandrivsk until 1921, is a city in southeast Ukraine, situated on the banks of the Dnieper, Dnieper River. It is the Capital city, administrative centre of Zaporizhzhia Oblast. Zaporizhzhia ...

, Donetsk, Luhansk and Mykolaiv regions are the most suitable for the construction of wind power plants. Ukraine has a rather high climatic potential of wind power, which provides productive work not only of autonomous power units, but also of powerful wind power plants. The interest in exploring the most promising places for using wind energy is growing, based on its climatic potential and indicators of its possible utilization. According to the Global wind energy council, about 40% of the areas are suitable for wind power generation.Global wind energy council 2011 report
/ref> In the medium term, it is possible to develop about 5,000 MW of wind energy, that is, 20-30% of total electricity consumption in the country. In 1996, the government announced a strategy for the construction of 200 MW of wind power by 2010, but by the end of 2011, only 151 MW were put into operation.

Capacity

* 225.8 MW of WPP in the occupied by Russia territory of the Crimea and Donetsk and Luhansk regions.

List of wind farms

References

Sources

NBT builds EUR 370 million large-scale wind farm in Ukraine

Norway builds large-scale wind farm in Ukraine

Ukraine’s most powerful wind turbines now produced 45 km away from the front line
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