04.09.2026
On September 17, Energy Club will hold the forum “Energy of Freedom: Sustainability and New Opportunities for the Energy Storage Systems Market in Ukraine” in Kyiv. Storage systems today are no longer just a technology for backup power and are becoming one of the key tools for energy management, increasing business sustainability, and developing a new architecture for the Ukrainian energy system.
The forum participants – representatives of the energy business, the state, regulatory authorities, and investors – will discuss how to turn this technological potential into real investment and business opportunities. The focus is on the economics of projects, new business models, the first Ukrainian cases, and the conditions necessary for scaling the market.
One of the speakers at the forum will be Illia Chaban, Director of the Energy Direction of the Engineering and Investment Group EDS. In an interview with Energy Club journalist Olena Karpachova, he spoke about the prospects for energy storage systems in Ukraine, the development of maneuvering energy hubs, the most attractive business models for investors, and the changing demands of Ukrainian business – from individual energy solutions to complex managed energy assets.
– The topic of your report is “Ukrainian maneuvering energy hubs: investments that create independence”. What do you put into the concept of such a hub? What is your vision for its role in the future architecture of the Ukrainian power system?
– A shunting energy hub is an integrated system in which solar generation, electricity storage facilities, the enterprise’s own consumption and, if necessary, charging infrastructure work as a single controlled mechanism.
The essence of such a hub is not to increase generation volumes, but to manage the time when energy is supplied to the market or consumed. This allows you to simultaneously ensure the energy autonomy of the enterprise, generate additional income through price arbitrage, and increase the flexibility of the power system.
In the future architecture of the Ukrainian power system, shunting hubs should become basic elements. Instead of a significant share of uncontrolled solar generation, which creates excess supply during hours of maximum insolation and puts pressure on the price, the system will receive a network of controlled nodes. They will ensure the transition from a model of increasing capacity to a model of increasing manageability and investment efficiency. We are already seeing this shift in practice – most of the new projects that come to us are immediately designed as such hubs.
– EDS has implemented dozens of large-scale energy projects. Based on this experience, is the Ukrainian infrastructure ready for the widespread implementation of energy storage systems today? What are the biggest technical challenges you see?
– Infrastructurally – yes, it is ready, and we confirm this with our own portfolio: over 320 MWh of constructed UZE, 30 MW+ facilities under our own management and over 2.5 GW of designed generation and storage. Technically, projects pay off in 3-4 years with a correctly selected model.
But there are two challenges that really hold back scaling.
The first is the network capacity and the speed of obtaining technical specifications, especially for purchasing electricity from the network: to install a UGE in a specific location, technical specifications (TS) are required for both purchasing (taking) and selling (returning) energy to the network. If at least one of the conditions is not met, the UGE will not work.
The second is competencies: correct AI-dispatching of charging and discharging of the storage device is a separate engineering discipline, and it is the accuracy of cycle forecasting that determines the difference between the profitability of almost identical equipment.
– Energy storage systems are increasingly being considered as a promising investment direction. In your opinion, what is decisive for an investor today: technology, market rules or project economics?
– Yes, indeed, over the past year all the necessary conditions for high profitability in the electricity balancing market have been created. As a result, this segment has significantly increased its investment attractiveness and demonstrated rapid growth.
– What business models for using storage systems do you consider the most promising for Ukrainian companies in the coming years? Are the balancing market opportunities sufficient today to make such projects economically attractive?
– The two main business models that are currently of interest are:
– EDS works as an EPC contractor and supports projects from idea to commissioning. Have customer requests changed over the past two or three years? How much has business interest in complex solutions that combine generation and storage systems increased?
– Cardinally. Three years ago, 7 out of 10 requests were about a classic solar power plant “under a green tariff” or sale to the market “day in advance”. Today, the vast majority of new requests are already requests for a complex facility: generation plus storage, and increasingly – also a charging infrastructure for electric vehicles. This is logical: in 2024–2026, the number of electric vehicles in Ukraine increased from 139 thousand to over 260 thousand, and demand is being formed not only for generation, but also for the infrastructure that serves this generation.
That is why we see development towards e-mobility hubs – complex facilities where generation, storage and high-speed charging infrastructure work as a single energy system. For business, this is no longer just installing a charging station. It is an opportunity to manage the load, use the stored electricity at the right time, optimize electricity costs and reduce dependence on network restrictions.
As a full-cycle EPC company, we responded to this request by expanding our own product line – from our own production of power energy equipment to the line of high-speed charging stations EDS CHARGERS with a capacity of up to 1440 kW in a split configuration. That is, we can combine generation, storage, power infrastructure and charging in one project – and ensure their correct joint operation.
And this, in our opinion, is the main change in the customer’s behavior. Today, he is no longer looking for a supplier of separate equipment, but a partner who can take on the entire energy project – from choosing a site and forming a technical concept and financial model to design, construction, commissioning and further dispatching.
That is, the market is gradually moving from the “buy equipment” model to the “create a managed energy asset” model. And we consider complex solutions – generation + storage + charging infrastructure – to be one of the most promising areas of its development.
– If we talk about the next five years, what should be a priority for the state, business and investors so that Ukraine gets a truly competitive market for energy storage systems?
– Three things.
First, the predictability of the rules of the balancing market: the investor sets a horizon of 5–10 years, and any sharp change in the mechanism for paying for maneuvering capacity immediately changes the economics of already constructed facilities.
Second, accelerating the issuance of technical specifications for purchasing electricity from the grid, because this is what opens access to the most profitable “parallel” models of solar power plants + solar thermal power plants.
Third, developing domestic production of key equipment within the country, so that shortages and delivery times do not hold back the pace of construction, as happened in 2023–2024.
If these three conditions are met, the next five years will be a window of opportunity: decentralization forces enterprises to move from electricity consumption to managing their own energy systems, storage devices cease to be an auxiliary technology and become an independent high-yield asset, and e-mobility creates demand not for cars, but for the infrastructure that serves them.
– If an industrial consumer were to contact you today with a question about whether it is worth investing in an energy storage system, what three key arguments would you give in favor of such a decision?
– The first is autonomy and protection against power shortages. UZE gives the enterprise control over its own energy profile regardless of what is happening in the network at a particular hour, and this is not only a matter of economics, but also of the operational sustainability of the business.
Drughy – energy arbitrage for the enterprise. Since even with stable network operation, it is possible to charge the UZE at the cheapest hours and thereby power the power equipment during those hours when energy from the network is most expensive.
The third is the potential for developing its own RES sources. As an example: with an already integrated UZE system at an industrial enterprise, it is much easier to retrofit the general internal network of the enterprise with a solar power plant or mini-wind power plant and accumulate unpredictable energy flows in the UZE, and then use stable energy from the UZE to power production at the required hours.
Ukrainian energy is gradually transitioning to a new reality, where not only how much electricity is produced, but also how effectively it can be managed is becoming important. Storage systems, distributed generation, shunting energy hubs and charging infrastructure are shaping a new model of energy consumption – more flexible, autonomous and focused on the needs of a specific business.
For Ukraine, this is both a challenge and an opportunity. Whether the country can turn the forced decentralization of the energy system into a competitive advantage will depend on the speed of forming clear market rules, developing networks and producing its own equipment. And it is precisely investments in technologies that make it possible not just to consume energy, but to manage it, that can become one of the keys to Ukraine’s energy independence.
