D uring the Soviet era, several countries of the former Sovi- et Union built district heating (DH) systems. In Ukraine, the state policy on the soviet-style DH sys- tems has remained more, or less the same since then, including dependency on fossil fuels, significant subsidies, in- efficiencies, and high excess generation capacity compared to systems in the Nordic region. The DH systems in Ukraine are aging, inefficient, and not meet- ing customer needs due to underinvestment and declined ser- vice quality. If you live in Ukraine, you will no doubt come across the many apartments where you cannot regulate the heat. The room temperature is either too warm or too cold during winter.
Opening the window becomes the only possibility to regulate temperature simply because the Ukrainian DH system and building installations are outdated. The excess capacity and large DH networks have further grown in Ukraine as customers disconnected from the DH networks, primarily due to the poor service quality, thus leaving the DH system ineffective and unbalanced. With weak salary growth and increasing prices, it became diffi- cult for citizens to paymore for heat, especially during Ukraine’s very harsh winter, where the temperature can drop to -26°C. As a result, the DH companies are faced with challenges when trying to increase heat prices, and recoverable tariffs have be- come more political rather than technical questions.
Replacement of DN 600 pre-insulated pipe in Zhytomyr, Ukraine
53,90%
51,20%
2019
2020
36,20% 35,20%
7,30% 5,10% 5,10%
3,60%
Nuclear power plants
Power Plant and CHP
Renewable Power Plants
Hydpo Power Plants
Figure 2 : Power generation sources
Rehabilitated gas boilers with low NOx emissions, Lutsk, Ukraine
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