22.04.2025
Valerii Bezus, Vice President of Energy Club, Head of the State Agency on Energy Efficiency and Energy Saving of Ukraine (2021-2023), and Advisor to the Minister for Communities, Territories and Infrastructure Development (2023-2024), spoke about the role of the Energy Club in supporting and developing specialists in the energy sector, a successful startup – courses for communities and businesses, and the training directions for energy market participants.
— We at Energy Club work on creating an environment that best fosters the professional development of energy specialists, — emphasized Valerii Oleksandrovych. — Constant communication and discussion of issues that concern professionals, exchange of opinions regarding problems, open discussion on ways to solve them — this is the best way for such development. Literally every event organized by Energy Club is a significant opportunity to raise the level of competence in the energy sector. As speakers, we invite professionals whose competence in energy is beyond doubt, and each presentation by such professionals is in itself a source of development for professional energy specialists.
In recent years, we have deeply reflected on how to maximally enhance the level of professionalism and expertise in discussions, not only within the professional community but also in wider circles, as energy has begun to interest and concern more and more Ukrainians. And with each passing year, the lack of calm, professional debate is felt more acutely, literally drowning in the noise of pseudo-experts who leverage modern media opportunities and try to capture as much attention as possible from uninformed Ukrainians at any cost. Unfortunately, this noise already has a significant negative impact on the development of the national energy sector. Therefore, not only the direction of training and developing personnel for the energy sector is important to us, but also extending our activities beyond the narrow professional audience. This is a natural progression for Energy Club, one step of which is the launch of a whole series of training courses on energy issues for a broad audience. And we can say that the initial results have exceeded our expectations regarding the interest shown by various specialists seeking to navigate energy issues.
— How effective are the events organized by Energy Club?
— In my opinion, we have the most direct connection with the energy industry regarding issues that are truly relevant and genuinely concern the Club’s members – and these are representatives from all segments of the energy and related sectors. Therefore, our events always reflect the most pressing issues and real challenges facing the Ukrainian energy sector. We conduct both open discussions on topics that concern broad circles of energy professionals and closed discussions among more focused groups of professionals.
The results of our work can be evaluated in different ways. In my conviction, it is the debate rich with genuine professional insights that has the most positive impact on the development of the national energy industry. Such debate itself has a direct impact on decision-making at both public and private levels. Of course, we summarize the positions of professionals and provide public authorities the opportunity to utilize these opinions, particularly through official appeals to relevant bodies, the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine, and the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, depending on the level of the specific issues.
— As a lecturer for Energy Club’s training courses, you’ve seen how relevant this initiative is. For whom and why are such express energy training courses important and useful? Is there feedback from the attendees? What topics interest them?
— The development of distributed generation in Ukraine has attracted significant attention in recent years due to the war and Russia’s terrorism, the destruction of large-scale generation, and the search for ways to ensure a sustainable energy supply for the country’s needs. However, ensuring high-quality and effective development of distributed generation is not straightforward, as it requires both new knowledge and skills, as well as the involvement of a wider range of specialists for planning, building, and operating such generation. The very availability of such knowledge and skills among various participants is perhaps the biggest bottleneck in development, as the practice of the last two years has already shown.
The greatest interest in knowledge about distributed generation today comes from business and community leaders responsible for ensuring energy supply sustainability amidst the risks of its absence from Ukraine’s centralized unified energy system. Energy supply restrictions during certain periods have become commonplace, and the challenges facing Ukraine’s energy system make it clear that these risks will remain significant for some time. At the same time, the development of modern energy generation and distribution technologies makes it possible to minimize the risks of unstable energy supply precisely through small, distributed generation from various energy sources.
Ukrainian businesses and communities have already gained some crisis experience in these matters. Many have realized that without a thorough study of approaches and practices, training relevant specialists, and even developing professional managerial erudition in energy matters, it is impossible to provide quality responses to the challenges of energy supply sustainability. Therefore, a large demand has emerged in the market, and offers for specialized training are appearing.
We at Energy Club also offered our product in a “startup” mode. Judging by the initial feedback we received from the audience, the quality of our product is already quite high, which is not surprising, as we involve practicing specialists with real, high-level experience in the energy sector as lecturers. Personally, I have over 20 years of experience in senior positions related to energy infrastructure and the energy transformation of the national energy sector, so I possess knowledge and understanding that I can share with the audience. It’s clear that the specific content and presentation require constant refinement and finer tuning to specific requests, and we are already using our initial experience for such adaptation, working on the content and quality based on the feedback we have already received.
— What areas of training do energy market participants need? What could Energy Club organize in the future?
— In the context of energy transformation and market reforms in Ukraine’s energy sector, the range of training areas interesting to existing energy market participants, and those interested in future participation, is constantly expanding. The extent to which Ukraine progresses in reforms will dictate the dynamics of this expansion.
The war imposes limitations on the development of national energy markets, so today the greatest interest lies in issues related precisely to the resilience of energy supply through distributed generation, which we have already mentioned. However, there is growing interest in issues and training areas related to effective operation in energy markets, primarily the electricity market. The opportunities arising during the formation and development of different electricity market segments, the various roles behind these opportunities, and the corresponding knowledge and skills needed to be effective in these roles — these are subjects of interest for those who already see themselves as energy market participants or are considering such a possibility in the future.
We see a separate vector of interest in energy knowledge from businesses aimed not so much at direct participation in energy markets, but at servicing these markets and their participants. This includes representatives from the banking and financial sectors, legal and management consulting, and so on. Effective energy markets require a developed and highly professional market infrastructure, and the demand for training and developing personnel for such infrastructure is no less important than training personnel directly within the energy sector.
Energy Club is a community that unites both energy businesses and businesses related to the energy sector. Therefore, we have perhaps the best access to professional expertise across the widest range of issues. We will use this access to develop professional energy competencies and enhance the erudition of Ukrainians for the sake of our state’s development.
