Pavlo Karas - "If you are not able to connect a cogeneration machine in 4-5 months, you should not be a manager"

03.02.2026

On February 3, Energy Club held an expert discussion titled “The Future of Thermal Energy: Between Decentralization and Reality.”

Amid constant threats to the energy infrastructure, leading experts, government officials, and business representatives gathered to discuss a new heat supply strategy and find a balance between centralized generation and decentralized solutions.

Here are the key insights from the event speaker.

As a practitioner from Cherkasy, Karas emphasized that distributed generation is a profitable business, and leaders who fail to install cogeneration during wartime do not deserve their positions.

Pavlo Karas - Director of the Municipal Heating Company 'Cherkasyteplokomunenergo'

“I would never abandon centralization or CHPs, as they can burn various fuels: waste, bio-waste, wood chips.

However, the system’s ‘anti-freeze’ mode must be guaranteed by backup sources. We implemented this in Cherkasy; the city effectively runs on our distributed generation. If you cannot connect a cogeneration unit in 4-5 months during a war, you should not be leading that enterprise.”