18.02.2025
Volodymyr Ioffe, Vice President of Energy Club, discussed what is needed to elevate Ukraine’s energy system to a new level, how modern energy thinking is being formed, and the transition to increased use and efficiency of renewable and alternative energy sources.
Volodymyr has personal practical experience in operating a full cycle of large-scale heavy water and liquid hydrogen production of the previous generation, developing quality standards and transportation of liquid hydrogen. As a former Economic and Management Director of two large energy-intensive Ukrainian chemical enterprises, Investment and Venture Director of TAS Investment and Financial Group, and Strategic Consulting Director of BDO Ukraine, Volodymyr Ioffe applies his knowledge and experience in Energy Club’s activities to facilitate the recovery, transformation, and development of Ukraine’s energy sector. In particular, he says:
“The enemy is deliberately destroying the state’s energy infrastructure, so currently the main task is to ensure a critical minimum of various forms of energy for consumers. At the same time, requirements regarding safety, reliability, primary raw materials, technical level, scale, etc., are significantly changing for any energy facility. That is, even critical recovery is taking place with new material and technical basis and with changing architecture of generation-supply-consumption chains at the local community level. At the household level, we have accessible solar generation equipment, partial electrical energy storage, and various hybrid systems involving elements of intelligent control.
The energy landscape is changing, with former ‘pure’ consumers now generating a share of society’s needed energy, making energy exchange bilateral. At the local community level, forced energy decentralization is also occurring. For the sustainability of the state’s energy security, it’s important to prevent global energy localization.
In my view, the initial formation of a social paradigm of modern energy thinking is ongoing under special conditions. At all levels – from local communities to national governance – there is a need for people who are gradually emerging with internal perspective and relevant professional knowledge for decision-making, financing, and implementing energy projects, with inner confidence that small or large justifications should consider available modern technical alternatives, risks and social consequences, financial model, and implementation plan. Of course, these are well-known typical components of business planning, and implementation requires time, qualified specialists, and expenses. But the implementation of such, albeit somewhat simplified, forms of preliminary justifications at the local community level is extremely necessary. Similarly necessary is open public discussion of a wide range of recovery and further development issues – through understanding that the state’s economic structure has changed, energy component recovery will occur on modern material-technical and informational foundations and requires new architecture.
Right now, a global energy transition is happening towards increased use and efficiency of renewable and alternative energy sources. There is a very wide range of solutions in terms of access to raw materials, capital and operational costs, environmental impact, etc. Naturally, Ukrainian business is primarily implementing projects in wind energy, bioenergy, energy storage, utility transformation, distribution and management systems, cogeneration and hybrid energy technologies.
I hope that in the near future, with state and local funding support and grant programs, initiatives for citizens such as balcony power plants, heat pumps, wind generation, and energy efficiency programs for multi-apartment building co-owners will continue to be implemented. Also, new solutions in nuclear, hydrogen, and geothermal energy will find their applications.”
