28.10.2025
Energy Club brings together key market players—businesses, investors, regulators, and government representatives—to discuss practical steps for the industry’s development at the forum “Energy of Freedom: Resilience and New Opportunities for the Energy Storage Systems Market in Ukraine,” which will take place in Kyiv on November 20. We will focus on creating a transparent market that will strengthen Ukraine’s energy independence and discuss state strategy and the regulatory environment, business models and investments, technologies and experience, as well as new opportunities for consumers.
Leading experts from the energy industry will be speakers at the forum, sharing their practical experience. Among them is Vitalii Nykolaienko, CEO of Voltage Group. In conditions where business is seeking paths to autonomy and the energy system needs new solutions for balancing, the practical experience of implementing BESS (battery energy storage systems) projects becomes invaluable. Vitalii Nykolaienko has deep expertise in implementing complex energy projects, so he will cover the topic of business models and investments with real examples: how to make energy storage profitable in Ukrainian realities, which case studies of operating in the balancing market have already proven successful, how to correctly assess a project’s payback and attract financing.
In an interview with the Energy Club media department, Vitalii Nykolaienko spoke about how Voltage Group is implementing modern solutions for balancing the energy system, the payback of such projects, their role in ensuring the stability of the energy market and business autonomy, and also outlined the development potential for BESS in the coming years and shared advice for investors planning to enter this segment.
– Mr. Nykolaienko, Voltage Group is one of the pioneers of the energy storage market in Ukraine. What were the biggest technical and non-technical challenges you faced when implementing the first BESS projects in Ukrainian realities?
– In truth, the system operator’s dispatchers faced the real challenges first and foremost: when the enemy attacks transmission grid substations or generating stations, power units of hundreds of megawatts fail instantly, with nothing to replace them. Against this backdrop, our difficulties are just minor operational tasks, but they still existed.
When we installed the first industrial ESS (Energy Storage Unit), the manufacturer refused to send engineers for supervised commissioning due to security concerns, so our engineers had to figure many things out themselves. The commissioning was carried out online. The newly built facility sustained damage from a Shahed attack, but fortunately, it was minor, and everything was quickly restored. I wouldn’t want to call these challenges, so as not to devalue the work of our fellow energy workers closer to the front line who are risking their lives. Difficulties of various kinds arise often, but these are all operational issues that can be solved with persistent and responsible work.
– Tell us about the most significant storage system implementation project carried out by your company. What specific problem did it solve for the client?
– Recently, Voltage Group built a 40 MWh BESS in a very short timeframe. In May, we began preparing the land plot, and by August, all the equipment, power grids, secondary circuits, and the rest were installed.
If we talk about the client, I would first recall that any investor aims to get a return on their investment and make a profit. But if you analyze the clientele, you will see ourselves and the state as a whole. Because the project is implemented to operate in the system operator’s ancillary services market, to support frequency in the grid. That is, it is significant for the integrated energy system of Ukraine, for all electricity consumers.
– Today, there is a lot of talk about the economics of BESS. Based on your experience, what is the real payback period for such projects for industrial enterprises in Ukraine, and what factors influence it the most?
– Yes, indeed, such projects are currently generating great interest from businesses. I have a feeling that investors and industrial consumers feel they have much more agency in the electricity market, which has been liberalized in recent years. The cost of BESS has now significantly decreased, and prices at different hours of the day vary even more—especially during sunny afternoons and evening peaks in the summer. Therefore, considering the arbitrage model, one can earn by investing in such projects. According to our calculations, their payback period is 4-5 years.
Of course, it all depends on many factors: the cost of the main equipment, the voltage class at the connection point, the linear component, the amount of capital raised, the operating mode of the unit, etc. A very good step was to provide the winners of auctions for ancillary services the opportunity to sign 5-year contracts with the TSO (Transmission System Operator). Now it is possible to plan somehow, to go to a bank, to attract funds. This has made it possible to launch large BESS projects today, which are super important for the energy system.
– How ready are the Ukrainian energy system and its regulatory field for the mass integration of storage systems? What is the main barrier in this regard?
– The Ukrainian energy system needs storage systems; they are a tool for balancing. The context of the war and the need to develop distributed generation are stimulating the mass integration of BESS into the energy system. All solar projects that we are currently designing and building are being implemented only with BESS, mostly with a 4-hour storage capacity. There is also a number of BESS projects that are installed without generation, as a separate unit.
The regulatory field, I believe, is very conducive to this today; I don’t see any particular obstacles. The main task of the state is not to change the rules of the game retrospectively, and not to worsen the already not-the-best investment climate. There is a problem of debt in the electricity market that the state needs to solve. Trust is a great asset. And, of course, the energy sector should be managed by energy professionals, not politicians and populists.
– How do you assess the potential of the BESS market in Ukraine for the next 3-5 years? Which segments (large-scale generation, industry, households) will develop the fastest?
– We are only at the beginning. The market capacity in Ukraine for BESS is not even 10% yet, if we are talking about the arbitrage model. And in 2030, solar parks operating on the ‘green’ tariff will also install BESS, and these are large capacities/volumes.
The easiest and fastest way to do this is for industry, where there are solar power plants for self-consumption; BESS should be added there. The infrastructure is already in place, and in this case, there are no hassles with obtaining Technical Specifications (TS) from the DSO (Distribution System Operator). Those generation facilities that operate on the Day-Ahead Market (DAM) have also understood the potential of storage, learned to calculate financial models and payback, and will quickly add storage for themselves. Households will install such systems depending on the use of scheduled or emergency outages, and this is not about business, but about autonomy.
– At the ‘Energy of Freedom’ forum on November 20, what aspects of your experience and practical advice for potential investors do you plan to focus on in your speech?
– I will talk about real case studies that our company, Voltage Group, has implemented, and about the value of such systems for the client. I will draw attention to the importance of connection grids, as there are always more problems with this. And I will advise those who have already decided to act more boldly and implement such projects.
