28.11.2025
On November 20, the Energy Club forum “Energy of Freedom: Resilience and New Opportunities for the Energy Storage Systems Market in Ukraine” took place in Kyiv. Amid large-scale challenges for the Ukrainian energy system, energy storage technologies are becoming critically important for ensuring security, stability, and building a modern decentralized power grid.
During the panel discussion “Strategy, Investments, and Business Models: How to Make the BESS Market in Ukraine Profitable?”, Andriy Kobolyev, founder of the Eney company, spoke about forming a transparent market, attracting investments, and launching new projects. Event participants learned which business models can be profitable in Ukrainian realities, what is needed for investment development, and how to reduce barriers to launching new BESS projects.
The company began studying various directions of “green” energy back in 2021. Storage systems were immediately included in the list of promising areas, and after the start of the full-scale war, their relevance only increased.
According to Andriy Kobolyev, the BESS market is a territory of long-term investments, not quick profits. Strategic decisions, low risk, a long-term payback horizon, and scalability are important here.
At the same time, the market remains politicized: the legacy of conflicts surrounding the “green” tariff and the lack of predictability in state policy create a “wait-and-see” mode, where investors observe further regulatory steps.
When selecting a technological platform, the company faced issues regarding war risks and cybersecurity.
To hedge against war risks, Eney utilized the DFC insurance instrument, which stipulates the use of equipment from specific manufacturers. This led to the choice of the American company Fluence.
Despite Fluence being more expensive than many Chinese analogs, its key advantages are a high level of cyber protection and compliance with Western standards. There are already EU countries that have banned Chinese inverters for connection to high-voltage grids due to intervention risks. Several other states are considering similar decisions.
Eney will also work with Fluence on new projects. The company has already proposed a modernized system with greater capacity and a lower price — less than €100/kWh, although Chinese systems still remain cheaper.
The company focuses on three key monetization directions:
A separate issue for the company remains operations in the balancing market. Today, it provides even greater income for batteries than the frequency restoration market, but settlement mechanisms still require standardization.
Andriy Kobolyev believes that the volatility of the Ukrainian energy market will persist even after the war ends — meaning that BESS installations will have a stable source of income precisely due to price fluctuations.
Even before the war, USAID estimated the ancillary services market of NPC Ukrenergo at over 1 GW, and the arbitrage market as even larger. Thus, the market has immense capacity.
However, the state’s position remains the key factor.
Andriy Kobolyev emphasized:
According to him, state companies should operate only where private business is unable to cover market needs. Therefore, it is important to define a model that will complement — not crowd out — private investors.
In the opinion of the head of Eney, the energy storage market in Ukraine has huge potential, but its realization depends on the quality of state policy and transparent rules of the game. Technologies are becoming cheaper, and volatility ensures demand. The state’s task is to create strategic frameworks and predictability that will allow investors to make long-term decisions.
Market volatility in the context of integration with adjacent energy markets depends primarily on the structure of the country’s energy balance, the share of renewable generation, and the behavior of regional markets during peak load hours. In the combined space of market coupling, prices reflect not only local deficits or surpluses but also changes in neighboring countries. Therefore, the state should not “smooth out” volatility — this is a natural signaling mechanism for investments. Instead, state policy should form a balanced energy mix that ensures the predictability of system operation and creates conditions for flexible capacities — primarily BESS, which are capable of monetizing volatility while simultaneously reducing its systemic effect.
